Vacation Experiment

After spending a week in Paris, France I was looking over old photographer books owned by my grandfather.  My grandfather, Bernard, 80, was a paratrooper for the French Special Forces in Algerian War from 1957 to 1958 (Algerian War was a conflict between France and Algerian independence movement from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France  - source Wikipedia).  He rarely talks about his wartime adventures and when it is brought up he quickly changed the conversation.  He never showed me any photos of battle just training images.  When pressed, he would pick-up one of many photo books and precede to look at ones with animals.

As a mental refuge from wartime memories, Grandfather would share his photo books on animals.
Never talking (very awkward) he would just look at the pages while turning them at his own pace.

After receiving his first digital camera, Grandfather started documenting his daily life one frame at time and storing them on his computer.  Grandfather for some particular reason would concentrate on two distinctive geese that lived near his farm house.  From that point on, Grandfather would  continue photographing animals in pairs documenting the lives of his animal subjects.

Inspired by his love of animal photography, I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and emulate his photographic style and ventured out to a local horse stable. The perfect opportunity presented itself when my cousin, Antoine, invited me to attend his horse riding class and visit the stable where he kept his horse.

As I arrived, I noticed a rider briskly riding a horse.  I wanted to capture movement as the student

practiced trotting.   Due to lack of light, I first changed my ISO and proceed by lowering my shutter speed to 1/25 so that I capture the  motion blur to create the sense of movement.

After the trotting session and during the cool down stage of classes, Antoine approached his girlfriend and started
a conversation regarding an upcoming competition event.  During the exchange of words,
I noticed "V" created by Antoine's body, the horse, and its rider.  Quickly, I made a frame
slightly tilting the camera in order to get the parts of the saddle. 

As a avid sport shooter, I am use to shooting action. Grandfather taught me the art of slowing down.  To be more observant and finding other ways to express myself other than using words.  

How do you slow down? Share with me your thoughts and pictures that has caused you to stop and ponder.

EBitton