Horsing around

When one of our freelance stylists and writers, Sara Silm, told me about some photographs done by Australian photographer Julian Wolkenstein that featured perfectly coiffured horses, I couldn’t wait to see them.

Apparently the images have been causing a bit of a stir and once I saw them, I understood why! I was intrigued by how the shots had been done, whether the horses where willing participants and how I could get such a glossy mane!

Here, Julian reveals how the shoot came about.

What was the shoot for?
The Horses was a collaboration with a London advertising agency called Fallon. It came from a conversation that started with, "Hey, [wouldn’t it] be kinda funny to style horses’ hair?” After working hard in advertising for a while, you just need to have some fun, do something because it makes you smile, and remember why you love image-making.



How did you find your beautiful subjects?
Like any photo shoot, I had to do a casting call. I contacted a horse stable that provided horses for film and television. I looked at about 50 horses in total, and the deciding factors were long hair, their overall look, and temperament.

They are so striking they almost don’t look real - was there much digital trickery?
This was all done on location outside of London and essentially in camera. There was post production, but it was more to do with the colourisation and grading of the images.

How did you achieve such glossy locks?
As not too many people have shot horses with hair extensions like this before, it was a bit of trial and error. On one of the shoot days, we realised we didn’t have enough hair extensions for one of the horses, so we had to come back and rework it. I had my hair person, Acacio Da Silva, running around London in the days before the shoots buying up every hair extension in London! Each horse took a full day to prepare - the hair extensions took about 4-5 hours each, then there were another few hours of on camera time.



Have you had any backlash?
I have had a few emails from people who assumed the horses did not like the grooming. From what I saw, they seemed to enjoy it very much. They are "professional" performers and valued creatures, so their owners would not allow any cruelty, or mistreatment of their beloved animals.

Have you got any other animals in mind for a makeover?
I don’t like to repeat myself too much with images. I am working on a project at the moment to do with patchwork quilted beards for men but animals are never far from my thoughts.

For more information about Julian’s work, visit www.julianwolkenstein.com and to purchase prints, go to www.julianwolkensteinprintsales.bigcartel.com

Bianca, deputy editor