Calling all equestrians who are about to enter their senior year. This post is for you! Have you been thinking about including your horse in your senior photos? Looking back this is one thing I missed out on. I am not sure why it didn't cross my mind but I am here to make sure no other equestrians miss out like I did! There is not much I would change about my past because I believe everything happens for a reason but in this case, I wish I could redo my senior photos with my horse. Pictured below are some of my favorite images from my 2023 senior sessions with Kylee, Brooke, Cara, Elizabeth, a ..read more

I know we have all heard this saying: Teamwork makes the dreamwork. Over the years I realized this could not be more true, especially for an equine photographer, and the photos from this session is living proof of why! Jessica was the first client I photographed in 2023. She was also the first person to hire me to photograph 9 horses in one evening. By the end it felt like we were playing a little game called musical horses. How fun! I must admit I was a little nervous about coordinating so many horses leading up to the session but once my assistant and I arrived and saw she had several helpin ..read more

I find entering a new year scary, yet exciting! Scary because it it always so hard for me to believe another year has passed. I want to stay young forever! Exciting because I love thinking about and writing down my goals for the upcoming year. After a making vision board with a couple of my friends for the last three years I determined it is one of my favorite ways to document my goals. Ever since I started making them I found myself crossing off more goals quicker than ever before! It also could just be a coincidence that I have also been working really hard the last few years between growing ..read more

Hello everyone and welcome to December! I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that 2021 is coming to an end. This year has been one for the books for Shannon Castaneda Photography so many reasons! I attended my first equine photography networking event back in March and had the opportunity to meet and work with so many among photographers around the country! Here are my top photos from each of the sessions: I was also fortunate enough to continue to grow my client base despite all of craziness going on in the world. I have so many amazing clients and am so thankful they hav ..read more

In March I had the opportunity to attend my first equine photography networking event. Originally the plan was to attend the Equine Photography Retreat, which is 4 days of classes and styled shoots with different photographers, but it ended up getting postponed to 2022 due to COVID. Although that did not work out two of the photographers Evelyn Szczepanek and Erica Hills still decided to put together 3 amazing and fun days of sessions. Unfortunately my Papaw passed away right before the event so I missed the first day but the second two days were so much fun and and I learned so many things th ..read more

I had a beautiful evening with Ansley and Charlie at WB Equestrian Center in Sanford, Florida a few weekends ago! I had been watching the weather all week leading up to our session and was afraid we were going to get rained out, as it consistently showed 80%-90% rain all day, all weekend. We ended up getting super lucky and not a drop of rain came out of the sky the day of our session! We had an incredibly beautiful sunset and Charlie behaved so well for us! There were tons of smiles and laughs during our equine portrait and horse & rider session. I am so thankful for perfect evenings like ..read more

What a pleasure it was to meet Erica and her two babies Godiva and Mr. Sweets! Erica is the founder and owner of Peacefully Persistent Equestrian. I started following her after I came across some photos from a maternity photoshoot she did with a girl I went to high school with. We stayed in touched and committed to supporting each others photography businesses by encouraging each other as well as commenting on and responding to each others posts. She reached out to do a mini session to get a few photos for the about me section of her website, but whoever knows me knows there is no such thing a ..read more

I had so much fun with Sheila and Harley at La Rose Performance Horses! A friend of a friend referred Sheila to me a few months ago and we were finally able to link up and capture some amazing photos! This was my first portrait shoot in Jacksonville and I am super excited to go back for round two next week. I am still working on the black background pictures but could not wait to share what I have edited so far! Next week we will shoot closer to sunset in hopes to capture come amazing colors!! Here are a few of my favorites from the collection ..read more

Back in April I had a horse & rider and equine portrait session at Blue Sky Farm in Williston, Florida with Jennifer and her beautiful quarter horse named Elliott. I met Jennifer a few years ago when I was the official photographer for the Sunshine State Open Pleasure Show. Little did I know several years later I would be photographing them at their barn and creating images that with out a doubt represent some of my dreamiest work yet! It was ironic because as my assistant and I were driving to the session we passed countless patches of wild flowers on the side of the road and spent at lea ..read more

I am planning to roll out two new packages in 2023 and wanted to take some time to discuss one of them today! Are there any trainers out there would would find value in professional photos to help market and sell your horses quicker? Or maybe you are a fellow equestrian who has outgrown your first pony and are looking to sell and move up to a horse? I recently did sale photos for two of Copperstone Equestrian Center's sale horses Lucky and Dalton. Lucky was listed on Horse Bids and I came across their Facebook post after he sold and it got 686 hearts/likes, 21 shares, and 7 comments. This is 1 ..read more