Grant’s job takes him away from home quite a bit, so miss Maddie is Ange’s constant faithful companion while he is away. Another reason I was looking forward to this session was the location – these guys are lucky enough to live in beautiful northern NSW, just inland from Tweed Heads and surrounded by green rolling hills, country roads and lakes.

We started off the session on the deck of their house. The light filtering through the surrounding foliage was gorgeous.

Although more than happy to play fetch all day long, Miss Maddie was less than eager for her close ups. We worked out that the focus beep of my camera sounded rather similar to the warning sound her collar made when nearing the boundary fence of their property (as Maddie does love to roam). Also, big professional cameras can be pretty intimidating even without the beeping!

We did end up getting a few cute shots on the deck anyway, the afternoon colours of the filtered sunshine were amazing against her black and white.

To Maddie’s relief, we soon bundled into the car and headed off to a country road nearby where she often enjoys meandering walks with lots of her favourite thing – fetching sticks!

This girl LOVES her sticks and is never far from one!

Maddie was much happier out on the road in familiar territory, and of course sticks make everything in life that much better!

I love this shot of Maddie racing towards her stick, with such an intense look on her face!

With the help of her beloved sticks, we even managed to get some lovely close ups of her out and about enjoying her walk, totally in her element.

Since the session was organised on the sly without Ang knowing, we were able to complete the experience with a surprise viewing and ordering session at their home – we set everything up and when Ang came home from work there was a lovely slideshow of all Maddie’s images on the TV in their lounge room! I love seeing people’s reactions as they view their images for the first time!

The late afternoon light at the beach was just perfect and played up Comet’s lovely thick golden coat when backlit.

Not to be outshone, Sun worked the light too and looked much more alert than her age of 10 years would suggest.

Comet had me in stitches with his upside-down stick chewing antics.

Whereas Sun was quite happy to pose it up in the sunshine near the rocks.

Earlier in the afternoon before heading to the beach we’d had a bonding session in the backyard, and these two proved to be excellent models.

Our session was at The Spit dog beach on the Gold Coast. It was a rather windy afternoon! We started off with some shots of the dogs and their human siblings.

Then moved to the shelter of the dunes where we were blessed with some calmer conditions and lovely late afternoon sunlight, perfect for candids! This is Macca, he’s the older of the pair and just loves chasing his ball and being with his people.

The younger of the pair is Baxter – he just loves to head off and introduce himself to potential doggy friends!

Together they make a lovely matching pair – alike in looks but actually pretty different in personality.

Their human sister just loves them, I’m sure they get lots of cuddles like this when they’re at home.

While Macca was quite happy to hang around and play ball with his family, Baxter was much more interested in exploring. I love the shots I did get of him though, what a sweet face. And yes, those ears really as as soft as they look!

Here’s Baxter scoping out his next potential doggy friend further down the beach.

Macca was quite content to just sit around, hoarding his beloved ball.

Then Baxter joined him for some fun and games.

After I was sure we had enough nice ‘dry dog’ shots in the dunes, we headed down to where the dogs were dying to get to – the water!

Being spaniels, these two were right at home in the water, even if this was only their second time at the beach in their lives! They were soon racing through the whitewash, chasing balls and having a grand old time.

As we were leaving the beach and walking back to the car, the sun came out from behind some clouds and provided some beautiful sunset light. It was almost a pity they looked so wet and bedraggled looking, but hey at least they look like they’d been having some fun!

“My next horse and the most important horse I will ever own is Aly.  I still own Aly and he is my life.  Aly is an unraced thoroughbred and was a very well educated rising 5 yr old when I first brought him. He is now almost 20 yrs old and has had a magnificent life with me.  I see Aly as my partner in this endeavor to retrain horses.  He helps me by spending time with these young, usually highly strung and worked up babies who have come from a very stressful and intense lifestyle to that of complete calmness and love.  Aly is wise and loyal.  He constantly helps me with my riding. He is well educated and forces me to ride correctly or he will simply not co-operate!”

Lorelle and Aly have built up an amazing connection over the 15 years they have been together, something that’s immediately obvious when you meet them.

He follows her around, no halter or leadrope, comes when he’s called (sometimes) and generally acts more like a dog than a horse!

Aly looks pretty amazing for a 20 year old horse, don’t you think?

Aly also has a funny side, he’s a real character! We hung out with him for a couple of hours and I got to witness one of his interesting little habits… he’s a licker!

Gotta love the little drool trail coming off his bottom lip here, classic!

Finishing off with my favourite shot of the session.

Horses are right up there with dogs to photograph for me, so if you have a gorgeous horse you want some relaxed, casual non-posed shots of, please get in contact, I’d love to meet you both!