Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Today was a rather auspicious day – its been a long time coming, but I am very excited to finally be setting up my studio gallery:)  I had planned to just move the boxes in, but got a little carried away and started unpacking everything.  I felt like a kid at Christmas unpacking all of my art supplies, books and art magazines – many of which I havn’t seen for well over 18 months!  My mind is racing with all the things that I want to paint and draw, I really don’t know where to start first – oils, acrylics, colour pencils or something in graphite.  I’d really like to have a go at some plein air oil paintings – all I have to do is step outside my studio for inspiration in every direction, from the beautiful landscape to the baby lambs and calves that are being born on all the farms around here – including ours, but thats a subject for another post, as I really need to catch up on posts that I meant to add last week but ran out of time to!

Following on from my last post with photos of the Clydesdales from the Dardanup Heritage Park Heavy Horse Show, I thought I would share some of the photos of the Team Australia Liberty Horse display performed by brother and sister team, Sam and Sasha Watson from Horses and Horsemen.

The performance shows the willingness, agility, intelligence and responsiveness of these magnificent animals and the incredible relationship that can be created between man and horse.  The display involved a number of different and often very difficult maneuvers, with the liberty horses following instruction and direction from voice and subtle body language cues.  What I found most amazing and awe inspiring was the willingness and enjoyment all the horses displayed, they were clearly enjoying the performance as much as the audience was, even the six month old weanlings were eager and willing to perform even with the noise and distraction of the large crowd and bright orange safety fences!

I was specifically taking photos for reference material for future paintings (and have already flagged a number of shots that are going to make a wonderful new series of paintings) but here are a few shots of the performance which I can *highly* recommend as a must see for anyone who loves horses!

Team Australia Liberty Horse display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Nine Horse Liberty Display © 2010 South West Photography

Team Australia Two by Two Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Liberty Horse Display © 2010 South West Photography

Roman Riding Liberty Horse display © 2010 South West Photography

Next post will include some photos from the tent pegging display by 10th Light Horse Bunbury Troop.

All images from the Liberty Horse display can be viewed on the Events section of my South West Photography website.

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

BUY CUSTOMIZED ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

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I was lucky enough to attend the Dardanup Heritage Park Heavy Horse Show on  June 6, 2010 to watch some  magnificent Clydesdales in action and obtain reference material for future paintings.  There was also a riding and tent pegging display by the 10th Light Horse Bunbury Troop and the most amazing liberty horse display by Sam and Sasha Watson of Horses and Horsemen – a performance that every horse owner should see to get a glimpse into the incredible communication and willing relationship that is possible between horse and man – even with foals as young as six months of age!  As a horse owner, the liberty performance was both humbling and awe inspiring and something that you could never tire of watching.

I have hundreds of photos from the day that I havn’t finished sorting through so I will make a couple of blog posts to include a few from the Light Horse and Team Australia Liberty performances as well as the Clydesdales.

Clydesdale horse in harness © 2010 South West Photography

Clydesdale in Harness © 2010 South West Photography

Traditional Clydesdale and cart © 2010 South West Photography

Clydesdale team and wine cart © 2010 South West Photography

Clydesdale team and single axle cart © 2010 South West Photography

Clydesdales in harness © 2010 South West Photography

Proofs from the Clydesdale Show will be uploaded and available for competitors to purchase prints from my photography events website South West Photography next week (the 10gig limit per month wireless internet is never enough and we have been shaped back to dinosaur dialup speed until next week:(

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

BUY CUSTOMIZED ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

BUY CARDS, PHOTO PRINTS, CANVAS ART AND FRAMED ART PRINTS: Redbubble

First of all I have to have a whinge about Telstra’s internet services for country clients.  I admit our wireless connection is reasonably good, but  is absolutely pointless when you can’t access the internet anyway because the 10GIG combined maximum Up/download limit per month before getting capped back to 1992 dial-up speed is absolutely, positively pathetic!  C’mon Telstra its 2010! Country people are not stuck in the dark ages without computers, how about doing your country customers a favour, get with the times and give us a few of the options your city customers enjoy!

LOL ok,  rant over for the moment anyway!  It is a genuine complaint, probably aggravated today due to grumpiness from getting very little sleep last night due to my daughters little standarbred mare Sandy having colic.   She is feeling a lot better today thank goodness.  I think it was a combination of new grass after the rains and a change in feed – although she was introduced to it slowly she is a bit of a piggy and stole some of Crickets in the morning.  She’s back on just hay rations for a few days and hopefully won’t have any more problems.

And as for Fostering Dogs 101…or How to fail Fostering 101 in four easy steps:

1) Vow and declare to never have any other breed than Border Collies.

2) Agree to look after my sisters one year old Koolie while she finds him a good home.

3) Before we get half way home decide we will keep him if he fits in with our four Border Collies.

Well the four Border Collies seem to be accepting him into the pack quite well, so it looks like our canine family now consists of 4 collies and a Koolie.  Not quite a Border Collie, but at least he’s a sheepdog:)

The Border Collie Brigade: L to R  Bolt, Zeke, Trinity and Taj at the front

Border Collie Dogs

And Flash the Koolie:

Update:  Unfortunately Flash was unable to stay with us, if it was just one or two things we would have worked through them, but he was constantly urinately  in the house (causing Zeke and Bolt to go backwards in their toilet training as well), he became very domineering over the young boys, Bolt in particular and was making him very nervy, he was going up/over/through fences to chase the sheep, horses and chickens (a habit he taught Bolt that we are still trying to break).  Unfortunately that would have meant long term confinement on a chain for Flash which is something that I do not agree with.  Luckily his breeder was able to take him back and Flash is now living on the farm where he was born.

Flash - Australian Koolie dog

Five Feral Farm dogs

Koolies (also known as Coolies/German Coolies) are an Australian developed working dog  predominantly bred to work sheep and have many similarities in personality and nature to Border Collies.  As they have been bred for working ability rather than for conformation show ring/beauty pageant looks, there is a range of variations in size, build and coat colour within the breed according to the terrain and type of work they were required to do.

It was definitely time for a facelift for the old blog so the new design is finally online, just in time to celebrate the arrival of my new gift shop at Zazzle.  We have selected Zazzle for printing products, prints and giftware  for a number of reasons, primarily the high quality of Zazzle products which are endorsde and used by world famous brands such as Hallmark, officially licensed Star Wars and Disney, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet,  Mythbusters, and many more.  So this means that products featuring selected reproductions of my artwork are in very good company!

Aside from that, the Zazzle Promise is the sort of thing that I personally take a lot of notice of when purchasing anything from an online store, and I would expect nothing less for customers purchasing products featuring my artwork.  The Zazzle promise means that:

• Your satisfaction is Zazzle’s Top Priority. If you are not satisfied for any reason with the final product, you may return your purchase for a replacement or refund within 30 days of receipt.
• Your information is secure – Zazzle SSL secured servers are tested daily to ensure your data will arrive privately and unaltered.
• Zazzle produces products on demand and ships very quickly! Production and shipping is within 24 hours for everything but a few products that take slightly longer than 24 hours to produce and ship.
• And finally a great range of products and gift lines to feature my art, many that you can customise to suit your own preference!

Please click the link below to visit the new gift shop and let me know what you think!  New artwork is being added daily and if you would like to be notified of new additions, simply subscribe to this blog, follow me on Twitter or fan me on Facebook

Zazzle.com.au/mwrighton

Thanks for visiting my blog  and sharing my art and photography with your family and friends!

x Michelle

Michelle Wrighton: Animal, Wildlife & Landscape Fine Art & Photography

FACEBOOK: Michelle Wrighton Artist

TWITTER: artistMichelleW

SHOP CUSTOMIZED ART PRINTS, T-SHIRTS & GIFTS: Zazzle

SHOP CARDS, MATTED, LAMINATED AND FRAMED ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY PRINTS: Redbubble

The Mayanup Campdraft is an annual event that I was so pleased to be able to go and watch this year. Despite the dust which made shooting very difficult at times, and the odd cow that decided to try and jump the arena fencing right where I was standing, I managed to get some pretty good shots of the action. Here are a few of my favorites from the weekend.

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Mayanup Campdraft ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

All photographs from the Mayanup Campdraft can be viewed and purchased from South West Photography

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

Boyup Brook is the Country Music Capitol of Western Australia, and the annual Country Music Festival and WA Country Music Awards brings visitors not only from around WA and the rest of Australia, but also from around the world.  This was my first time attending the Festival and it was a bit of a shock to have so many people in our sleepy little town!

A local icon © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Boyup Brook Country Music Festival © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Boyup Brook Country Music Festival © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Boyup Brook Country Music Festival © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Boyup Brook Country Music Festival © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Country Music Festival ©South West Photography All Rights Reserved

Yes the two following photos were taken at the Boyup Brook Country Music Festival, LOL the last thing I (and everyone else) expected to see was a punk playing non-traditional music on the bagpipes, but this guy was very good and I regret not buying one of his CD’s!

The Bad Piper - Punk 'n' Bagpipes © South West Photography

Punk playing the bagpipes at the Country Music Festival © South West Photography All Rights Reserved

The 2011 Boyup Brook Country Music Festival will be held on 17th – 20th February 2011 and will feature Troy Cassar-Daley, Felicity Urquhart, Peter Denahy s well as the Bush Poet’s Breakfast, Country Music Awards, stalls and markets, free street party and the Ute and Truck Muster.

All images from the Boyup Brook Country Music Festival and the Ute and Truck Muster can be viewed and purchased through the events section of South West Photography website.

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

I have just changed over from using Photoshop CS4 to Lightroom 2.4 for processing my photographs – all I can say is I wish I had done this sooner!  As much as I resist learning new computer programs (fuzzy mummy brain I think), Lightroom is so quick to use compared to CS4, the time out I have taken to learn how to use it is going to be a huge benefit in improving my workflow, especially for batch processing.  Here is a selection of the first images that I have processed through Lightroom from my road trip down south to Boyup Brook.

The only nitpick that I have with Lightroom is the watermarking ability or lack thereof.  I have purchased the mogrify preset which allows me to use my standard watermark…but it places them at the same location in every image, which can obscure important elements of the photograph. Plus I need to make additional copies of the watermark for different opacity and colours so that I can select slightly more subtle watermarks to suit individual images better…either that or just continue to use CS4 and apply the watermarks manually for each image.

Other than that one issue, I can highly recommend Lightroom to any photographer looking to speed up their workflow.

I hope you enjoy these images, some of them will be available for purchase as prints http://southwestphotography.com.au in the near future.

Cheers

Michelle

Orange Flower © 2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland © 2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland © 2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Rustic Relics, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Border Collie, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

Border Collie, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

SOUTH WEST PHOTOGRAPHY: Portrait, Event, Landscape and Fine Art Photography Prints

Sometimes life just gets a little bit too stressful, and the best way to deal with it is a few hours in the country re-connecting with nature and the beautiful land that we live in.  Yesterday was one of those days, and what a joy to just take a few hours and enjoy the sunshine and the beauty of our South West.  I rarely go anywhere interesting without my camera in hand, so I do have a few of my favourite shots to share with you all:)

I’m very happy with these for several reasons, firstly every single shot was taken in full manual, and while I have always been pleased with the 50D’s output in the other creative settings that I normally use with changing light/movement situations, I can honestly say that nothing beats pure manual for getting the best images!  Secondly, and this is a biggie for me, I was shooting with the beast (70-200mm 2.8L), but every shot was hand held – the monopod didn’t go on the camera once!  This is truly amazing (to me anyway) as after my first attempt at shooting handheld with the beast when I first got the 50D was a disaster, it was so heavy it made my wrists hurt and every photo had severe camera shake and I never thought I would be able to use it handheld.

Purple Flowers at Harvey ©2009 South West Photography

Rustic Farm Building ©2009 South West Photography

One Tree Hill Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

"panoRAMa" Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook Farmland in July ©2009 South West Photography

Scarlet Breasted Robin Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

"Bird on a Wire" Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Donnybrook to Boyup Brook Landscape © 2009 South West Photography

Scarlet Robin, Boyup Brook © 2009 South West Photography

"Flight" Birdwatching in Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Blackwood River, Boyup Brook ©2009 South West Photography

Boyup Brook at Dusk © South West Photography

Little Lamb backlit by the Sun ©2009 South West Photography

The Golden Hour ©South West Photography

I have to say that I was really pleased with the last two – the little lamb was shot through a ringlock fence and I wasn’t sure if my settings where correct for the lens to blur out the wire strands, but obviously they were (yay for me).  I had to jump out of the car, over a muddy ditch and up a hill to say hi to three very friendly horses that came over to the fence when I called them.  It was the golden hour and the light from the sinking sun behind them was just magnificent while this big bay gelding happily posed for me to practice my silhouette shots:) In the full size, his chin whiskers look like threads of pure gold.

Ok, I think thats more than a few photos (I know, I just can’t help myself)…although I do have heaps more that I will add at some stage when I get time to process them.  I’d love to know which of the photos is your favourite and why, so please feel free to leave me a comment:)

Cheers

Michelle

South West Photography

Yesterday I had a session with very cute 71/2 month old Jack.  What a cutie-pie, but oh-so serious when it came time to take his photos:)  Thanks to his very sweet mum, K for letting me come to your home and photograph your gorgeous boy!  I hope you enjoy this sneak peak at some of his photographs!

Baby Portrait Photography ©South West Photography

Baby Portrait Photography ©South West Photography

Baby Portrait Photography ©South West Photography

Baby Portrait Photography ©South West Photography

Portrait photography session information is available on the portraits section of my South West Photography website.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, so we took the kids down to Fremantle for a few hours (of course so did half of the metropolitan area;).  Normally if I take my camera when we go out, I lug the heavy 70-200mm 2.8L around with me (gotta love L zoom:) but the down side is that its pretty heavy to carry when you just want to wander around for a few hours.  So I popped the nifty fifty on my camera and apart from a few portrait shots of the kids, decided to step way outside of my normal subject matter and try to get some interesting shots of some of the old buildings.  Considering I’m not into architecture photography, I am quite pleased with how these turned out!

Hotel Cleopatra Fremantle ©2009 South West Photography

Fremantle Architecture Photography ©2009 South West Photography

Fremantle Architecture Photography ©2009 South West Photography

Fremantle Architecture Photography ©2009 South West Photography

Fremantle Architecture Photography ©2009 South West Photography

Fremantle Markets ©2009 South West Photography

Additional images are available on my photography website South West Photography