- This is like the engagement session but with horses.

(women laughing) - Photography is beautiful on its own, but once you start to see what goes into it, you realize it is an art in every sense of it.

Some of the earliest art created by humans was of horses, and they featured prominently in every medium ever since.

But why?

I grew up obsessed with horses, so I get it.

There's something undeniably alluring about them.

I'm Kate Nelson, an award-winning Native American journalist and equestrian.

Join me as I blur the lines between my two passions and set out to learn from artists who work with horses as their main muse.

Today I'm meeting up with equine photographer, Shelley Paulson, to learn what it takes to get the perfect shot.

- [Shelley] Oh my goodness, talk about the drama.

- [Kate] Take a turn behind the camera myself and hear how she feels about the intersection of AI and artistry.

- The way I bring art into almost everything I do is in my use of light.

I love backlight.

I love dust and rays of light.

- I think it's incredible how you're taking something so commonplace and making it really beautiful, but you're using the real elements.

That's not something that you know like you're snapping a photo, and then you're putting it in against some wacky backgrounds like using AI or like over Photoshopping it.

- Yeah.

- Have you ever played around with it to see if like can AI create something of the same quality of what you shoot?

- Oh yeah.

All right.

What was the outcome of that?

- It was interesting because I started playing with Midjourney when it was really early, and I was like, all right, I need to know my enemy, right?

And so I went in Midjourney and I typed in like brown horse in rays of light from trees.

So very simple prompt.

Who did Edward Scissor hands?

- [Kate] Tim Burton?

- Tim Burton.

It was a Tim Burton horse.

- [Kate] Yes.

There's something very artistic about it.

And maybe if someone had painted this?

- Yes.

- [Kate] You might think it has some.

- Like abstract.

- Yeah, it's very abstract, but it's almost like you have the trees that look like they're sort of like coming out from the horse's mane.

Pretty much missing the lower jaw, the legs are doing some interesting things here.

- [Shelley] Yeah, there's some gaps in the legs and a chunk out of this one.

- So this was that really early prompt you did.

- Really early prompt.

And then I don't even know if it was nine months later.

Same prompt: brown horse and rays of light coming from trees.

And I was like, uh oh.

- [Kate] Wow.

What a difference.

- The good thing for me, especially doing stock and commercial is it doesn't understand the intricacies.

You know, it'll have a western bit on an English horse with a person in a cowboy hat, and the horse has an extra leg or something, you know.

- The accuracy and sort of the authenticity of that, I think the most probably popular example of that is Beyonce's Cowboy Carter album.

- Oh, gosh, yes.

- That, you know, everyone was like she's on a horse.

This is amazing.

But horse people saw, well, the horse's front legs are doing a different thing than its back legs are.

The front legs are cantering, and its hind legs are trotting, which just couldn't be done or shouldn't be done.

- Right, like this bit isn't even in the horse's mouth.

The nose band is too low.

- Beyonce looks great.

- Of course Beyonce looks great.

- We're just talking about what's going on with the horse.

But to the untrained eye, you don't notice these things.

- [Shelley] Yeah.

- [Kate] Versus the work that you do where it's really accurate.

Not only it's how horses actually move in real life.

- [Shelley] Yeah.

- [Kate] But again, with that idea of that specificity.

If someone's riding dressage, that looks really different than if someone's jumping.

- [Shelley] Yes.

- You know who I think she should work with next time?

- [Shelley] Who?

- Shelley Paulson.

- Oh, well, of course.

I'm available.

- Little plug, little plug.

- Beyonce, call me.

- Beyonce is into this.

- Yes, indeed.

Oh, you're so cute.

Little Porkchop.

Okay, all right, let's put the photo halter on.

This horse understands the assignment.

- And the photo halter is then so that you can, you can remove it in editing.

- Yeah, this is just a more minimal halter.

- He's very happy now that he has.

- Attention.

- Exactly, a whole photo crew, and everyone fawning over him.

- We're all here for you, buddy.

- Good boy.

- What I see is the little bit of sun flare behind him, and I just thought that would be really pretty.

So what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna have Kira play the sound of horses whinnying, and we'll see what he does.

Yes.

- Oh, that's stunning.

- That is amazing.

- And then you get the curvature of his neck, ope.

- Yeah.

- He's gonna stop and nibble on the grass for a minute.

Yeah, good boy, Choppers.

Good boy, you a model.

I know you're a horsewoman yourself, but maybe you can take us back to what inspired you to become an equestrian photographer.

- The only way to get well known as an equine photographer was to shoot shows, and I had no interest in standing in a dusty arena all day.

So I just kept doing that kind of more on the side.

But I grew as a wedding photographer.

That really set me up to start.

- [Kate] Okay, and help pay the bills probably a little bit.

- [Shelley] Yeah, at the level that I was able to get to was very lucrative.

- Important question, were there any horses in the wedding parties?

- 100%, yes.

I specialized in, if you want a horse at your wedding.

- [Kate] Yes.

- [Shelley] You should call me.

- [Kate] Yes.

- But I was kind of at a pinnacle of my wedding photography career when I slipped on a concrete floor, landed on my head and sustained a traumatic brain injury.

Most people think, oh, you did that off of a horse.

- [Kate] Right.

- I'm like, I wish I had a great story like that.

No, I'm just really clumsy.

After a year of trying to shoot weddings after that, it was just too much.

And I just said, I'm done.

And the only thing I could do was to just try and make a go of the equine photography.

- [Kate] Yeah.

- As a full-time business.

Oh, pretty boy.

He likes the pompom, that's really cute.

- So we have all of these different toys, you said, but a lot of it's just baiting the horses.

But the ears are so important because, you know, a horse's ears show what they're paying attention to.

- Yeah, and to me it's like a smile.

It's like you want your kids smiling for your family portrait because they look their best.

- [Kate] Yeah.

- All right, now step forward and get those front feet more square.

- [Kate] This is again, that accuracy, right?

The idea of like, you want the horse to be squared.

- And look a little hint of a smile on your face.

Like you enjoy riding your horse.

- Like we love our horses so much.

I remember one time when you were photographing me, and you said, you need to stop doing that with your forehead.

You're trying too hard.

And I thought, but I am trying so hard.

(both laughing) - Oh, pretty, pretty.

- Oh, that's beautiful.

- In 2017, I had a call with a major stock library, and they wanted my work in their premium offerings.

We had a great call with their team, and at the end, the person leading the call said I just have one piece of feedback for you.

And I was like, oh, what's that?

And he said, you know, from your website it looks like horseback riding is for rich white girls.

And I kind of winced because he wasn't wrong.

- Well, there's statistics that support that.

That of some of the equestrian federations here in the United States, the vast majority of it is, you know, white women.

And it's a very small percentage actually that is, you know, from other communities.

- Yeah, and so I was like, okay, I'm on it.

And I put out a model call looking for equestrians of color.

And you know, it's a little tricky, but I found the people.

I continue to find the people.

- I was one of them.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- I loved putting your images in my library, and I've been building that stock library since probably 15 years.

So it's like over 17,000 images now.

- Yeah.

- And they're premium quality.

Like they're not what you're gonna find on any stock library for whatever.

That's like, you know, the person that isn't wearing a helmet riding a horse.

- I was really happy to be able to contribute to your stock options so that if someone is looking for an indigenous equestrian who rides dressage, that is very specific.

- [Shelley] Yeah.

- Maybe there's only one of us.

- Yes.

- In your.

- Ever photographed.

- In your gallery, but to me that representation is so important.

And so that was really incredible to be a part of that project.

- Somebody wants to be part of this.

- He says, what are we doing?

- Can you just pull in my direction a little, see what happens.

Oh, there's some light on his face, but I don't know if I hate it.

Yeah, oh, that's good.

- [Kate] That's really pretty.

- That's beautiful.

Let's try the whinnies just in case.

(horses neighing) Oh!

(women laughing) This is the other thing.

It takes a lot of patience.

- For sure.

- And just knowing that it's gonna take a while.

- Right, well, and there's simultaneously the patience.

- [Shelley] Yes.

- Oh, there we go.

- [Shelley] Yes, gorgeous.

- And also knowing that you gotta snap while you have it, right?

- [Shelley] Yep.

- Maybe it should be your turn.

- Okay.

- This is the button to push for focus.

- Okay.

- And it should find her face, or even the back of her head.

I'll increase the depth of the field a little.

(both laughing) - Can you put it on beginner mode?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, nope.

Not letting you off that easy.

And then that's the, obviously the button to take the pictures.

- Yep, okay.

So most important, I need to get this strap on so that I don't.

- Drop it.

- Yes.

- [Shelley] But then you gotta be careful of that tree.

So like find a.

- I see.

- [Shelley] There you go, yeah, yeah.

- Happy medium, happy medium.

- [Shelley] Yep, happy medium.

- And Rachel, open up your hips a little bit more to me.

There we go.

Oh look, I even gave art direction.

- Oh, yay.

- I've improved.

- I think you could be good at this.

- Could be, I don't know though.

I hear that there's a prolific professional at the top of this field, so I don't know that I wanna try to compete.

- [Shelley] I don't know, there's room for everyone.

- Oh, Rachel, giving him some lovin'.

- Oh, man, he loves that kiss.

- Doesn't get much better than that.

No, that, we can just call it a day.

- Yeah.

Will you gimme a kiss and not give me a black eye?

Should we see what we captured out there?

- Yes, I'm very excited, very excited.

- I'm very excited to see if mine even come close to what yours look like.

- So here we are at the beginning, not really the intended shots, but my gosh, this light is just too good.

And I actually kind of liked it a few times when he kind of arched his neck down.

Like that is very artistic.

So I'll mark that as one to play with, even though he was just like trying to get rid of a bug.

- And do you find that sometimes you, you know, capture some of the best shots in sort of these inbetweens?

- Yeah, most authentic.

See if I can find where we get to your shots.

You know, if I can't tell the difference, that's a good problem, right?

Look at that.

See, look at how in focus they are.

Beautiful.

This is a really nice composition.

I like that.

And these like don't even need much editing.

They're so perfect.

- So how much do you take into consideration the ease of editing when you're making selects?

Or is it the idea of you want the best image, and you'll figure out how to make it happen?

- Yeah, if all the elements are there, if the right things are in focus, if the background is good, composition is good, moment is good.

I do edit my photos to bring out the most beauty in them.

And I believe in using AI and things for retouching to take things out of an image, but I'm not adding elements.

- Not to create it.

- Right, and so it's like this kind of fine line.

So I just grabbed this tool, it's called the Remove Tool, otherwise known as Magic Bandaid.

And I want it to be a little bigger than the halter.

And I normally do this with a mouse.

- [Kate] Oh, wow.

- It actually, yeah, it did a pretty good job.

I just have to redo this part.

And this used to take so much effort, like Content-Aware Fill or Stamp Tool.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I've been doing, I've been doing this for over 20 years now.

- Yeah.

- And I was like probably Photoshop 1.0 when I started, and.

- Like would this take hours?

- Hours probably.

Like it's just absurd to me like how easy it is.

It's almost not fair.

- Well, Shelley, I can't thank you enough.

I always had such a reverence for your work and for equine photography in general, but it gives me this newfound level of respect for everything that goes into it.

So thank you for sharing your talent and your art with us.

- Oh, well you're so welcome.

- [Kate] From album covers to advertising, stock photography is everywhere.

Some authentically captured and some AI generated.

And whether we realize it or not, those images shape how we see the world.

But no matter how smart technology gets, it takes a human who truly loves and knows horses to capture the spirit of this wild muse.

(upbeat music)