Meet the Photographers

Your photographers Alec and Lucy are both experienced horse people, who just happen to combine it with their passion for photography.

Lucy

“My love for horses started when I was about six. I used to sit for hours making up names for the horses in neighbouring fields to my house, wishing that they were mine. Having saved Birthday and Christmas money for riding lessons and made friends with girls at school who owned horses (you know who you are), one day my mother got a call to say a friend was moving abroad and would we like to pick up their pony…the next day! From that day on my poor pony Shadow never got a day off, jumping, hacking, and showing. We were always together. Sadly I lost this dear little man last year at the grand old age of 35. If only someone had told me back then how important great Portrait photographs are when you get older, I might not be faced with the snap of me eating a burger with Shadow at a XCountry every time I open the fridge door.” Lucy’s experience is diverse and includes an A Level in both Photography and Stage make-up, a year as a Make-up artist for a national portrait studio, an Art design & Media BA Hons Degree, a Broadcast Journalist for Portsmouth TV and a stint as a researcher for ITV. A year out in Australia, working Polo horses encouraged the camera to come out again and two years later after a short stint as an event manager in London, Lucy joined Alec at Centaur Photographic. We told you…very diverse!

Alec

“My parents owned a livery/ competition yard while I was growing up. Young and problematic horses were readily available to me and I loved nothing better than bringing them on. In my teens I competed at county level show jumping and dabbled in Eventing. I was also a keen artist and studied photography at school, initially intending to follow this as a career. But when our farrier offered me an apprenticeship I took him up on it and became a Master Farrier at 21. I continued photography as a hobby, but eventually I realised that combining horses and photography was what I really wanted to do!” Alec formed Centaur Photographic in 2001 and shortly after he was asked by Guards Polo Club to be their duty Farrier at Queens Cup and Cartier International day. He asked if he could bring his camera as well as anvil, and then submitted the photos to the polo club. The next year he was there as Official Photographer instead of Official Farrier. Alec is very proud to have been the main supplier of prints and promotional images to this highly prestigious club for so many years.