Shropshire Magazine

An atmospheric hunting scene in winter by Michael Martin

Gill Guest meets an accomplished equestrian photographer

Horses are extraordinarily beautiful, with an exquisite grace that has appealed to artists for centuries. They can also be cantankerous, stubborn, grumpy, childish, fun loving, free spirited, wilful, brave, foolhardy . . . and probably a horse transporter full of other descriptive adjectives as well, depending on their own particular bent.

It is these idiosyncrasies of character, much more than their visual appearance, that make each and every one unique. Much as it is with people too, of course.

For artists who portray humans – sketching and sculpting, painting or photographing – the challenge is to capture not only the physical likeness of a person but also to delve beneath the veneer of mere appearance to expose a glimpse of the individual beneath. Only the very best succeed and, until I meet Michael Martin, I simply would not have believed that the same depth of portrayal was possible for a horse.

Michael is a photographer. He lives not far from me on the eastern flanks of Clee Hill, in the rustically named village of Crumpsbrook. We meet on what turns out to be a very chilly autumn day with a positively wintry nip in the air, so he ushers me rapidly into his home, offering warming tea – PG or Earl Grey. I opt for plain old PG, and soon, clutching a welcome steaming mug, I am browsing Michael’s photos and putting together my own picture – of the photographer himself.

A rider and horse silhouetted against the sunrise. Photo by Michael Martin.

Michael specialises in equine portraits and clearly has a deep understanding of his subject. So was he, I venture, like many a Shropshire lad or lass, practically raised on a pony?

“Oh no,” Michael laughs. “My sister got the pony. She was 11 years younger than me but when she started I thought I’d have a go too. I was 17 at the time and I imagined it might be a good way to meet girls!”

Initially Michael taught himself to ride on a cob called Rocky. “Then someone persuaded me to have some lessons that I

didn’t think I needed,” he recalls sheepishly, recoiling somewhat at this confession of teenage arrogance. Fortunately young Michael redeemed himself. An able student, he even went on to study at the prestigious Cadre Noir, the French National School of Equitation, at Saumur in the Loire Valley.

Here he learned to speak French (“Horseman’s French – if someone wants to speak about politics, I’m lost!” he confesses, with a grin) and was tutored in all aspects of equitation, including the classical ‘airs above the ground’, stylised leaps, rears and kicks for which both the Cadre Noir and the Spanish Riding School in Vienna are famed. Unlike the historic Spanish School, the Cadre Noir is in a state of continual development and has a reputation for producing innovative horsemen whose collective talent has never been exceeded.

An innovative and talented horseman he may be, but Michael is modest to the point of bashfulness about his competitive dressage successes. When pressed, he does show me a photograph of himself – “Looking grumpy!” he laughs – competing on Belfern Sauntering Lass at the National Championships at the very highest Prix St Georges level, but nowadays you are more likely to find him photographing horses in competition rather than riding them.

Like riding, photography was a skill Michael seems to have been born to master. In his early 30s he took a year off to travel around the world and bought his first camera to record this momentous trip. Significantly, it was not some point-and-shoot pocket-sized producer of tourist snaps, but a decent Pentax single-lens reflex and two lenses.

“I hadn’t used one before but I had no doubt I could master it,” he says, not betraying yet more discomfiting adolescent presumption, but instead demonstrating something more intuitive, an almost eerie sense of precognition or something that was simply meant to be.

Young Michael backpacked across Europe, through Turkey and into Pakistan. He had fallen in love with India on a previous visit – when he spent one winter teaching children to ride in New Delhi – so this time spent a further five months savouring it, travelling all the way from the Himalayas in the north to the furthest tip of the south coast.

Photographing a horse requires supreme patience. Photo by Michael Martin

He even rode all the way down the western seaboard – not on a horse, but on a bicycle. “I only had one puncture,” he recalls, slightly surprised in retrospect, as he steered clear of main roads and stuck to rutted dirt tracks in order to enjoy the countryside and its tiny villages.

“The villagers would punt me across rivers,” he explains. “They would charge one rupee (about one and a quarter pence) for me, one rupee for the bike, and the rucksack would go free!” he adds with a laugh.

Punted free or not, there was absolutely no room in the rucksack for photographs, so Michael took pictures on slide film and posted each completed reel halfway around the world, to Sweden, for processing. From Sweden the developed slides were sent straight back to England, so all the time that he was photographing his journey of a lifetime he actually had no idea of what the results looked like.

By the time he returned home Michael had not only enjoyed the trip of a lifetime but also acquired a new skill. Now you will find him and his photographic team at equestrian events around the county, capturing the thrills and spills and beavering away to produce visual memories that people can actually take away on the day.

If possible, Michael prefers to stand right in the arena, taking close action shots like the dynamic image of his daughter Josephine as she performs some speedy flag-snatching in the ring.

Capturing horses at their most expressive can be a time-consuming exercise. Photograph: Michael Martin

He still still finds the training of horses fascinating and immensely enjoys the psychology of it, with its challenge of “getting inside a horse’s head”. Now, however, instead of applying that knowledge to educating dressage horses, he is using it in hisphotographs.

Michael’s atmospheric studio portraits of horses are captured indoors, either at the indoor school at Crumpsbrook or in a large airy barn or school at the horse’s own home.

“Shots can take hours,” Michael admits. Even accustoming an animal to the unfamiliar studio lights takes supreme patience and of course horses do get bored, cross andfidgety.

“You know what they say about never working with children and animals,” Michael says cheerfully.

Nevertheless, Michael absolutely adores this work. “I set up for the shot I imagine, but I always have to be watching for the unexpected,” he explains, positively relishing the challenge.

He shows me a particularly magical and atmospheric image of a grey. Much of the horse is in darkness, but for the sinuous curve of its back and the tip of its ears.

“The horse turned around suddenly and I glimpsed the shot, knew it would be good and was quick enough to get it before he moved again,” Michael explains, happily, as well he should: the shot is visually very dramatic, conveying not only elegance, but inquisitiveness.

These are more than just pictures of horses. They are unique portraits, depicting not only the sublime beauty of the animal but also capturing something altogether more elusive – their essence of spirit.

• Michael Martin, The Mounts, Crumpsbrook, Cleobury Mortimer DY14 0HX.
Tel 01746 718040 or 07703 462109.
www.michaelmartin.co.uk