The Most Colourful Photo Shoot With Horses

I was always fascinated by Indian holi festivals. People celebrate the colourfulness of life and their love for it. As a journalist and photographer I have specialised on writing about horses and photographing them and after a friend showed me photos of a holi photo shoot with humans, I asked myself: Would it be possible to bring both horses and holi powder into my studio and create pictures that had never seen the light of day before?

Of course it is a big challenge to try and throw something at horses – as flight animals their instinct immediately tells them to escape as quickly as they can. So I suggested that the owners practised with their horses: They threw sand at them and as soon as they realised that it won’t hurt, they would stand still and wait for their treat.

These horses came into my studio and we gave it a try. Two assistants carefully threw the holi powder towards their shoulders and backs, another assistant tried to get the horses attention so that they pricked their ears towards the camera.

When I had a look at the first results on my camera I couldn’t believe how special and beautiful these pictures are: Some looked as if the horses were standing in fireworks, in others they seemed to be surrounded by fairy dust. To have such unnatural colours and something as natural as a horse in one picture is a contradiction in a way – but for me it immediately felt right. In my eyes there is nothing holier and more vivid on this planet than a horse!

It has to be mentioned that we paid attention that the powder never reached the horses eyes or nostrils, and we only used food-safe powder that didn’t contain any sort of chemicals and can be brushed off easily.

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