Last July, Vicki and I received an email inquiring about having us do an unorthodox photo shoot for one Nancy Shulins, and her magnificent thoroughbred horse Eli. Oh, and by the way, could we do it within the next week, and have the photos ready within the next couple of days after? We of course said “Yes”!, even though July for us was already jam packed with weddings and engagement sessions (nine in all), and proceeded to pack up our gear for the drive out to the farm for the shoot. We had never photographed an animal quite as large as a horse before (the closest being two Great Danes, which are pretty gigantic in comparison to our Chihuahua, Myles), and certainly not one with as much charm and personality as Eli . So we weren’t quite sure what to expect, other than we knew we had to come up with a perfect cover photo for Nancy’s new book (released today!).
You see, Nancy Shulins is kind of a big deal as it turns out. Not only was she the first woman special correspondent in the more than 150-year history of The Associated Press, her in-depth features for AP earned two Pulitzer Prize nominations and a Clarion award, and are included in numerous anthologies and textbooks. And her book is really, really GOOD. We were treated to an early release of “Falling for Eli“, and both Vicki and I couldn’t put it down once we started reading it.
That being said, we were treated to not only a fascinating discourse on the intricacies of horse ownership (or is it the other way around?), but also to the many wonderful facets of Eli’s personality (and he has it in spades) during our afternoon session with Nancy & Eli. The cover photo that was chosen for the book was one of our favorites out of the many great shots that beautiful July afternoon, and we couldn’t have had a better time getting to know Nancy and Eli . The fact that Nancy is such an amazing writer (seriously, go buy the book now, it is good in the “I know I was supposed to go to bed an hour ago, just one more chapter!” kind of way) was just icing on the cake to our newly found friendship with them.
. Robert has no idea where he is going (and we are sure he is ready to find out as we have been teasing him unmercifully by telling him we are going to all manner of uninhabitable locales), but we do, and we can’t wait to go and take TONS of pictures. We have some amazing events to share on the blog when we get back, (as well as a big announcement which we have been sitting on for a while!). Follow us on Facebook to see where we end up! In the meantime here are some of the photos from Kauai that we took on our last vacation with my family in February!
