Northern Nevada Equestrian Project

I’m so excited! Thanks to having extra time at home to do nothing but work, I have caught up on so many things!
The project I’ve been working on for two years finally came to fruition and I’m so proud of myself! Below is the MagCloud link if you’d like to check it out and purchase one.

The books arrived today and they are awesome, I’m so happy with them! Most of them are already purchased, but I should have a few extra to buy directly from me.

I’m so grateful to the equestrians who participated. It was so much fun to get to know other horse people in northern Nevada and tell their stories!

I’m really looking forward to doing this again in 2020, and the session fees will be donated to a local equine charity. It’s going to be a hard decision to pick one, but I will definitely ask for help and recommendations. I will also donate some editorial photography services to some additional organizations that could use it as well, so keep me in mind for that! If you are interested in being a part of this year’s project, contact me with your name, phone number, and email address at sue@sierraelegance.com and I’ll give you all the details.

Northern Nevada Equestrian Project

By Sue Halliburton in Equine Photography

62 pages

Find out more on MagCloud
Teen girl and her horse
One of the spreads from the book of the lovely Teaira and her darling Mustang filly, Piper
Woman and horse with mountains in the background
Prominent local attorney Kathleen Sigurdson and her love, Cinnamon Tea

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Meet Felina! Brave 5 year old in the fight of her life!

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Through the magic of Facebook, I got to meet the Montgomery family and learned about Felina’s diagnosis of leukemia almost exactly a year ago, on April 24th of 2018 when she was just four.
She began the fight of her life with the support of her parents, Mathew and Tiffany, as well as her brother, Mathew. She has been doing great, kicking cancer’s butt! She has had to deal with chemo, radiation, losing her hair, and steroids which affect her in a lot of crazy ways.
I was excited to give her the experience with her mom of rummaging through my studio closet and have them pick out fancy dresses and have a fun portrait session. I was hoping to give Felina positive memories during this challenging time. She was very strongly opinionated on what she would wear or being posed, but I still got some great portraits! She definitely has her own mind and she’s a fighter!
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She has had to endure many blood transfusions and blood draws, as well as platelet transfusions, and lumbar punctures. She also has a port in her chest for systemic treatments. She had 231 doses of oral chemo treatments (or more) in the period of one year! There is so much more but that’s just a start.
I couldn’t even imagine going through everything she has! She has been able to eat, walk, and talk throughout it all.
She finally had the chance to start kindergarten in March and then the pandemic started and she was done for the year. So that was a bummer, but she gets to learn at home with her big
brother. She is supposed to have a full year and a half of treatment and be totally cancer free!
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For more information or to follow Felina’s progress and story, join her group Felina’s Fight on Facebook You can also get more information about childhood cancer in northern Nevada by going to Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation

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Headshot Mini-Sessions Day!

Every so often I try to offer a convenient, quick, and value-priced option for headshots! They still include professional makeup and hairstyling, lots of poses to choose from, and perfectly retouched images.
Here are a few of the lovely ladies I was privileged to photograph in 2020!

Their careers are vastly different, but they are all making incredible contributions to our community of Reno and northern Nevada with their skills and talents!

Get in touch with us to schedule on a mini-session day if you don’t feel that you need a full session.

775.745.0445 or info@sierraelegance.com

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Burning Man fashion meets horses!

Aubrey had the most incredible braids for the Reno Fashion Show when she modeled for the boutique Culture, so I knew she would be the perfect model for this project!

She hasn’t had any real horse experience so being around my little Quarter Horse gelding, Scooter, was totally new to her! She was very brave dressed in skimpy outfits and high heels to jump right on him and do her best poses! She is a sweet and gorgeous girl, and was a fabulous model!

I had her take her shoes off since we were using my arena and we were in deep dirt, and as soon as I turned around to adjust a light Scooter was standing right on her bare foot! I was mad at myself for risking her safety, I would never be around horses myself in bare feet, or normally suggest that anyone else would be. Thankfully I got him off of her (and he doesn’t wear shoes) and we were able to continue. I’m sure it hurt a lot, but she kept smiling and finished the session like a trooper!

Clothing provided by Culture in Reno

Braids by Tricia Lobe with

Makeup by the model

Model- Aubrey Sadler

Assisted by her mom, Judie, and friend, Jemma

Equine Photographers Retreat— Wellington, Florida

I’m so glad I took advantage of the opportunity to attend the first Equine Photographers Retreat in Florida in early March, right before the world turned upside down! I was able to visit my daughter and her husband for a few days and visit with my darling new granddaughter, Ivy!
I flew home on March 9th, which is a time we were aware the virus was out there but there was no quarantine yet or any panic.

But back to the retreat, I’m sure we’ve had more than enough conversations about the pandemic!

It was a full three days at a mansion near the horse capital of Wellington, Florida. I had never been there and it was a great location and the weather was lovely! Each attendee chose the courses they wanted to take with an array of well-known instructors.

I had a variety of classes from black backgrounds, social media, posing the horse and rider, high school seniors, and finding your creativity.
I got to learn from the amazing April Visel, Giana Terranova, Shelley Paulson, and many more! I also got to chat a little bit with equine photographers from around the country and the world! My first connection was with an amazing photographer and Gypsy Vanner breeder from Australia, Rachel Flynn. We arrived a day early and explored West Palm Beach a little bit.

On one of the evenings we drove almost two hours away to Fort Pierce, a lovely beach on the Florida coast. We were met there by a pretty Andalusian mare, Rhapsody. She was a bit unsure and hadn’t really been to the beach before. The model was Morgan Moore, a stunning Arabian horse breeder and very skilled horsewoman. She had never met the mare before and she did a great job. There were a couple mishaps and Morgan hurt her hand when the mare took off, as well as a fall or two in the water, but she was such a trooper and hung in there until the end.

You can’t tell from the pictures, but there were around 20 photographers all grouped together shooting at the same time! That takes a bit of getting used to, the hardest part is not being able to connect with or direct the model. I was still excited for the chance to photograph a horse in the ocean, and got some great shots!
I was hoping to attend a workshop with April in Solvang, California, in the fall but I’m not sure if that will be happening or not.
I am truly excited to recreate this look in the northern California ocean or northern Nevada lakes!

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Mother/Daughter Beauty Session- The Ultimate Experience

Laurie and Chanelle are two of the sweetest, kindest, and most beautiful ladies in Reno! Laurie owns Center Stage, which is a staging company, and Chanelle is a talented esthetician. Chanelle is amazing at hair and makeup too, so she was able to create these fabulous looks! This is such a great gift to give the mother, daughter, or grandmother in your life. When she has everything, this is something no one else can give, and means the world to her forever!
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Glamorous Horses!

If there was any breed to photograph in a glamour style, the Gypsy Vanner comes to the top of the list! Baby doll faces with soft and dark eyes, the longest dreamy manes and tails, and feathery legs. They all combine to make a truly stunning horse, and come in a variety of colors. This one is a gorgeous silver dapple mare, Yente. She is owned by Heavenly Grace Ranch in Yuba City, CA. We traveled there on a very smokey day to photograph some young models, but everyone canceled at the last minute. Since we had come some distance and stayed overnight in our trailer, the great owners of the ranch, Kelly and Pat, gathered up their young ranch hands, found some costumes and did their makeup and hair. For a spur of the moment session, I was pretty thrilled with the results! Alicia and Helen were great little models, as were Yente and Sequoia, the horse models.
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Romantic Ranch Wedding

Bride and Horse
Bride and Horse

I was a wedding photographer for a couple decades before I decided to completely focus on portraits, and spend my weekends camping and with my husband and animals!

But when my good friend Morgan announced her engagement, and told me about her plans for her wedding, I just had to be a part of it!  Her Paint gelding, Forest, has been in her life for over 10 years, since he was a yearling, and it was important to her that he play a role in her special day.  And he definitely didn’t disappoint, he was a total gentleman, and carried the beautiful bride sidesaddle across the pasture and to her waiting family at the ceremony.  We also got some lovely portraits as sunset fell upon the wedding day and the family ranch.  Of course, most of the photos I took didn’t include Forest, but I wanted to share the ones that did for this post!  It was worth making an exception to photograph this event, it turned out perfectly!  There was a threat of rain, and they would have been so disappointed to move everything indoors after they had worked for months to make the ranch an awesome venue, so thankfully it stayed dry and went off without a hitch!  Congratulations to Morgan and Colt!

Active Family poses in the park

I photographed this attractive and very active family during a school holiday week.  That was a rare time where they had fewer practices, games, and events!  Molly is the youngest– she performed in Miracle on 34th Street for many weeks in a row this winter!  She has also attended theater camp in New York City, is very active in dance, and loves to sing!  Nathan loves to play baseball, and has played on a traveling team for some time.  Kyra is an avid runner like her parents, and competes in cross country.  She is a senior at Reno High!

 

The kids

The Family

The Hunsberger parents are very busy too!  Kurt is an attorney practicing in Reno, and Dina writes grants among many other professional endeavors.  She is also an amazing yogi!

Another family pose