Shelley Paulson Photography

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Buffalo, MN
Shelley Paulson Photography

Equine Commercial & Editorial Photography and Video. http://www.shelleypaulson.com

Equestrian Photography Education
https://www.shelleypaulsoneducation.com

Hello Horse Lover! 🐴❤️

I’m a horse lover too and I’m so glad you stopped by! I am based in Minnesota but travel far and wide to meet and photograph horse lovers like you. My work is known for its captivating light, emotional impact, creative composition, and rich color. Please reach out if you have questions or want to talk about horses and photography!

10/30/2026

Farmer to his horse: “Did you steal my thesaurus?”
Horse: “No.”

Let me know when you get it. 😂

10/29/2026

🐈 Let's hear it for the barn cats on National Cat Day! 🎉

Share a photo of your favorite barn cat in the comments!

10/28/2026

In the still, shallow waters of the Camargue, reflections were easy to come by, but not easy to capture!

I had to hold my camera near water level and shoot using the flip-out screen, which, as an older GenX photographer, is not my preferred method . 😆

While I was doing that, my other camera often rested in the sand...which wasn't exactly a great idea. 🫣 But honestly, getting sand in my camera and lens was 100% worth it for these captures.

One more technical note: I created every one of these images using my Canon 24-105 2.8 lens, not my usual 70-200. The longest focal length in this post is 60mm. If you're an equine photographer, don't be afraid to pull out a shorter lens once in a while. You might be surprised at how dynamic those images can be!

10/25/2026

Happy fall, y'all! 🍁🍁🍁

This stunning grey Warmblood Stallion, affectionately known as "Pork Chop," is owned and loved by Wolf Equestrian. ❤️ He's one of my favorite horses to photograph because he's as chill as they come and oh so handsome! 😍

10/23/2026

We said goodbye to our week 1 participants Saturday morning, then took a day to ourselves to rest and recuperate before week 2 participants arrived on Sunday.

I had seen ads for a special event at our final shoot location, Cabanes de Cacharel. It was a cultural celebration that I figured would somehow include the horses, so my friend and assistant Alyssa and I decided to attend.

This turned out to be one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip. We sat on straw bales on a flatbed trailer as the horses walked alongside. We watched the sun set as the Gardians showed their skill with the cows, listened to poetry, enjoyed the fresh air, and watched flocks of flamingos fly overhead.

From a photography standpoint, being stuck in one location (in this case, the trailer) is a bit limiting. But whenever I'm faced with limits, I have to work harder to be creative, and I often end up with some of my favorite photos!

10/22/2026

Our last horse shoot of the week was at Cabanes de Cacharel, in the heart of the Camargue, where we photographed a Camargue horse with a Gardian in traditional dress.

The Camargue is open country with very little shade, so this shoot turned into a teaching session in finding good light when it's hard to come by. It was during this shoot that I got the nickname "Light Bender," haha!

We used backlight at golden hour, let the sun flare in a star through a silhouette, and let the shadows fall dark in strong backlight.

When the sun went low behind the barn, the white stable walls gave us a soft, bright place to work. Posing came easily because Tessa knew how to stand with her horse and needed very little direction from us.

Some of my favorites from this shoot are of Tessa with her 19-year-old Jack Russell. Their love shows through in the photos and melts my heart. 🥰 I guess spending this much time with Nicole Begley Photography Education is rubbing off on me!

10/20/2026

Back to France we go! This time, we're at Haras du Coussoul, a Lusitano breeding farm about 5 minutes from the house where we stayed in Mouriès.

Everyone there was so warm and welcoming! ❤️ We had a lovely time together that included one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever witnessed!

The goal for this shoot was to teach a little bit about how to approach a more structured portrait session, but also capturing movement with ridden horses and horses at liberty.

We ended the shoot in a field of mares and foals who required lots of scratching - it was perfect!

10/15/2026

Excuse me as I pause my France sharing for some seasonal content... 🍂

One of my favorite fall activities is photographing a Long Lake Hounds fox hunt (sans fox, don't @ me!)

I had a photographer friend visiting another photographer friend and me, so I made plans to attend and photograph Saturday's hunt. The colors here in Minnesota are peaking, so it was a feast for the eyes and the lens!

The hunt is always a thrill. You get in position for them to run by, and as you're waiting, you hear the sound of the hounds and know it's a matter of moments before they run by with riders in hot pursuit!

10/14/2026

Autumn busy season is getting in the way of my France oversharing posts! 😆

Heavy clouds hung over the marsh when we arrived to photograph the Camargue horses in this unique setting. I thought I would get some moody captures, but at 20,000 ISO, I just got trash. 🚮

I did play with slow shutter panning to get better exposures and got a few I liked. Those are in black and white.

As the morning progressed, we had more light to work with, and I was able to bring my ISO back into a reasonable range and capture some great moments.

Despite the challenges, it was a great teaching moment for students to do photography in low light, and who wouldn't want to be standing in a marsh at sunrise with beautiful horses in the south of France? 😍

10/08/2026

Just after the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea, a pink hue filled the sky. This was the moment the whole shoot had been building toward - the white horses running through the ocean!

These images remind me of that scene in the first Lord of the Rings movie, where the wraiths were chasing Arwen and Frodo on horseback. Arwen stopped in the river and called on the waters to overtake the wraiths - the water became a herd of white horses crashing over them, allowing Arwen and Frodo to escape!

Do you see it?

Because the sun had set and I needed a high shutter speed to capture the action, I shot these at 3200 ISO to get good in-camera exposures. These were a challenging edit because the color of the light was changing by the minute!

My settings for the first photo were: f5.6, 1/1000, ISO 3200 with the Canon R5 Mk 2 and 70-200 2.8 Z lens.

Address

Buffalo, MN

Website

http://www.shelleypaulson.com/

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