Toronto - Day 2

My second day in Toronto started early. I woke up about 5:00am, and double-checked all of my photo gear. I was headed out with my buddy Ryan Courson to shoot some horses.

We met up and went to breakfast. It was one of those good, greasy, tastes-so-good-you-want-to-eat-it-forever-breakfasts. In all honesty, it was in the top five breakfasts I've ever had.

We finally got out to the first of two farms. As prepared as I was; plenty of battery power and memory, I was quite ill-prepared for what the weather had left behind. While it wasn't raining, it had rained. Ergo, everywhere I turned, I found mud. It was everywhere.

And I had one pair of shoes.

Once I'd resigned myself that, in fact, I would leave with muddy shoes, I was ready to shoot. Let's face it, there was no way I was getting away with clean shoes. I consider myself fortunate, however, that the shoes I had were equipped with a bajillion little rubber nubs on the soles, which allowed me to avert disaster. Had I been wearing treadless shoes, this skid never would've stopped:

Aside from the shoes, it was all good. We gathered our gear and went on our way.

As far as "excitement", well, there wasn't much of it. Unless a horse is coming around the clubhouse turn at Del Mar, they're pretty docile. That notwithstanding, though, they still offer some unique photo opportunities. And, because they don't come up to the fence too often (they've learned the fence is electrified), they lend themselves well to some long-lens work which I really enjoy:

I don't want to make it seem as if they're these enormous, yet skittish, animals that have no interest in interacting with we bipeds, but it takes a while. Once they do, though, they're sure to let you know that they're right there:



My buddy Ryan and Lucifer. Or Satan. Or something else which demonic in nature.



We spent a while shooting at one farm, and then drove over to another to do more shooting. The morning was getting late, though, so we opted to go ahead and call it a day. I dropped Ryan off at his place, got some aspirin (more on that in the next entry), and headed back to Toronto. Overall, it was a good time. Maybe, next time, we can do it when there's a little less mud. I mean, everyone was laughing at me: