My main focus over recent years has been equine photography, apart from photographing our horses Mary and I regularly follow the North East Cheshire Drag Hunt throughout the hunting season which lasts from September to April. Just to allay anyone's fears the NECDH does not hunt live quarry, rather the hounds follow a man made scent. The hunt features my images on its website:
http://www.necdh.co.uk/
As you can imagine this type of field ( literally ) photography poses many challenges ranging from extremes of weather, poor light, barbed wire fences and the possibility of losing contact with the field. It does however provide an extremely satisfying way to mix photography with my love of horses and field sports.
Getting back to the main question, the photographer whose work I most admire is Sarah Farnsworth, in my humble opinion she is probably the best hunting photographer around at the moment.
Check out her work at:
http://sarahfarnsworth.zenfolio.com/
For the record, whilst I admire her work I do not particularly warm to lady herself. She regularly makes disparaging remarks about us amateur toggers who she refers to as week end warriors. Se thinks that we should all take up other hobbies and leave everything to the professionals. What she fails to realise is that us amateurs cover the ordinary local hunts while she and her professional colleagues restrict their activities to the premiere league hunts where all the money is.
Anyway, as it has never been a pre requisite that you have to like someone to admire their work, I always look forward to seeing Sarah's posts of FB.
John
PS if anyone fancies a day out in the countryside, photgraphing the hunt, drop me a line and we'll sort something out for the coming season.
