There are horses at the intersection at the top of hill close to my home.

Most mornings, on the early walk with Rip, we pass them. And every time, regardless of what I was thinking about on the way up the road, I stop.

Not because I decide to. Just because a horse in a field at sunrise still does something to me that I couldn't explain to someone who doesn't already know.

I grew up with horses.

New Zealand. A family of farmers who have worked with sheep and dairy on both sides. As far back as I can remember, we had horses. My dad brought home a yearling once. My brother and I spent most of our time in the paddock with her.

What I absorbed then is that horses don't operate on pretense. They're not interested in the version of you that you present to the world. They respond to the real one. The one underneath.

A horse doesn't care who you are. It cares who you actually are. There's a difference.

Waiting on the horse.

At an equine photography training day, I was standing before a horse — a daughter's horse, her dad watching nearby. I wasn't rushing. I was just being present with the horse, letting her take her time.

The dad said, helpfully: "You can pat her, you know."

"I know," I said. "I'm waiting on the horse."

She came forward in her own time, on her own terms. Rushing the interaction is the fastest way to get nothing worth keeping. The stillness is not wasted time. The stillness is the work.

Horses as emotional mirrors.

This quality, the ability to read and reflect a person's emotional state is part of why horses make such effective therapy animals. Equine assisted therapy works particularly well for people living with PTSD and anxiety, precisely because the horse responds to what's actually happening inside you rather than what you're showing on the surface.

The equine world and who it sees.

The industry tends to centre on the elite. And meanwhile the backbone of the whole thing goes largely unseen. The ordinary people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties who get up before work to muck out, who have been riding, competing and hacking the same beautiful routes season after season.

These horses know exactly who they are. It's the industry that hasn't caught up.

Why I photograph them the way I do.

When I arrive at a yard, I try to bring what I've always brought to horses: presence without agenda, attention without performance. I don't direct to achieve the same poses as the session before. I watch and wait for the moment when the relationship between horse and person is simply there.

Waiting, when you're truly paying attention, is the most active thing you can do.

The horse sees you. Really sees you. The photograph should do the same.

With muddy boots and a full heart,

Jules x