Millie & The Ponies

An evening trip to Cissbury Ring for the golden hour.

Millie is the beautiful daughter of my close friend Linzi and shares my love of nature, food and the arts. She has the most amazing hair and I knew it would resemble vibrant, warm curls of lava if we caught the golden hour of sunset, so as soon as the government said we could meet up with a person from another household we were off!

I packed some props and Millie packed a bag of outfit changes and we marched up the hill to Cissbury Ring at 7 o’clock Tuesday evening.
The air was warm and balmy, rich with the scent of earth and sun. The view is never less than spectacular when you first reach the top of the steps.... fields for miles, the glint of the sea and the Isle of Wight on the horizon.

We walked and chatted and Millie didn’t mind when I announced ‘stop, we need to shoot here’ every few minutes.
I still had to be mindful of social distancing so I gave direction from the sidelines and she laughed a lot when I sat in thistles and gorse spike while trying to get different perspectives from being low to the ground.
We came across the ponies on the next clearing and they got quite interested in what we were up to; following us about, sniffing our bags and nudging us for scratches.
Rounding the bend to finish the loop, we ended up by the lone tree to watch the sunset and get a few more frames. The wind had picked up a little by then too which created soft movement for the final shots.

For me, these images conjur up part cowgirl, part Little House on the Prairie and part Merida from Disney’s brave.
Which was just the feel I’d hoped to achieve.

The view from the summit is well worth the climb.