MY STORY

 

 

Growing up in a country where horses play a big role in our culture, I have spent my entire childhood surrounded by them. As a kid, I would spend every school-break out in the countryside enjoying the horses company from sunrise till dawn.

Along with my brothers and cousins, we would start our days jumping out of bed at 5AM for a quick breakfast so we could go riding as early as we could. The earlier we started the furthest away we could ride our horses.. and our options were endless! We could go to the beach (which would take us 4/5 hours to get there and back), to the river, lagoon, open fields or to beautiful woods with creeks and streams running through them. The whole countryside was ours!

 

Every single morning the feeling of excitement was the same for us all and we had our own "kids routine", starting in the kitchen at 5AM waiting for "Tony" to bring us fresh cow milk from the field so we could have our breakfast and go get our horses saddled-up for our next adventure! We used to love helping with the typical Gaucho daily activities involved in a big South American farm, like herding cattle or horses for kilometers, watching the gauchos break my uncle´s beautiful quarter horses in the most gentle way.. and we would also play our own games like pretending to be part of a Western movie while galloping our horses full speed. We were riding quarter horses after all! And of course we would prepare our daily picnics for the afternoon with home made "dulce de leche", put it in wicker baskets and bring it all with us over our horses backs, riding for hours in the open countryside until we found our picnic special spot. We could have done it all by foot, but without horses there was no real excitement for us. We really needed them to be part of our own joy and entertainment.

Looking back to those childhood summers, we really treasure the joyful experience we all had as kids.

 

Today I photograph horses all over the world, from the most famous racehorses to the Camargue and Icelandic breeds out in the wild. I believe my childhood memories have played the biggest role in helping me become an equine photographer over the years. Portraying horses is a way of keeping them very close to my heart, making me feel at home wherever in the world I am.