Helen Revington

Helen Revington was born in America were her parents worked. When she was three they moved back to England where, despite there being no "horseyness" in her family, Helen quickly jumped on any available local pony, often without saddle or bridle, and jumping anything that got in her way! Throughout her childhood and teenage years, Helen gained a wealth of knowledge and experience by working in breaking, dealing and re-schooling yards, showing and carriage driving yards as well as competing in affiliated Eventing and Show jumping.

In her twenties Helen 'saw the light' and moved her horse Manny to a small livery yard in beautiful Gloucestershire run by Stephen Sparkes. It wasn't too long before she started to come along to shows and events bringing her trusted Russian camera with her and beating Stephen at his own game with her own personal vision and interpretation of horses in action! The camera was upgraded to Nikon professional cameras and only a few months past before Helen was getting her own photographs published in magazines and newspapers.

Her in depth knowledge of so many equestrian disciplines and a good grasp of the English language also lead to her becoming a very well respected journalist as well as photographer, with her informative and fun style of writing. Helen took the "there is a book in everybody" philosophy and put it into practice writing with Ernest Dillon's technical assistance the best selling title "Show Jumping for Fun or Glory"!

During the last seven years Helen's "other job" as a Registered Nurse has taken her into the world of TV and films. She has been able to combine her nursing with her stills photography and has taken commissioned photos on the sets of well known series such as Kingdom and Being Human - which already has a cult following! Hence the Werewolf shots in our portfolio!

Both Helen and Stephen look forward to meeting new people, seeing new places and rising to the challenge of interpreting and capturing that special moment in time for you, whatever that may be. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Stephen Sparkes

Stephen Sparkes started taking photographs in 1986. "It all started because I rode my horse Easter Lady at what was then British Horse Trials events. My father was a keen amateur photographer but was, rather inconveniently, allergic to and wary of horses. This meant he would stand 50 meters from the fence I was jumping with his camera and take a photo of me. When we got the prints back we had to play 'Spot the horse!' I boldly suggested at the time that perhaps he could stand a little closer to the fence which provoked the response, 'Here's the camera have a go yourself!' This I duly did and that's where my career started, with my first published work being printed in Eventing Magazine in 1989".

Over the next few years I started to cover lots of different equestrian competitions from polo-cross to pure dressage, show jumping, polo and horse racing both jump and flat. These events have taken me all over Europe to some fantastic venues like Badminton, Hickstead Ascot, Cheltenham and Aintree, where I have meet many interesting people and have been privileged to photograph some of the world's greatest equine stars. All these are very grand, but sometimes it's just as much fun in that local muddy field taking pictures at pony club camp!

Horses also come with a great social side attached to them, from the Hunt Ball, to the end of season awards ceremony. This is where I started my social photography, giving me my grounding for interacting with and organizing groups of people, which leads very nicely onto some of the attributes needed to be a wedding photographer! There are plenty of other quality's needed like being a friendly, good communicator and listening to people's ideas and requests as well as the obvious which is capturing those special moments and translating them into photographs that can be viewed and treasured, but it's a good start!

I enjoy the whole process of wedding photography from the first conversation on the phone, through to meeting the couple, (quite often at the venue) to discussing their requirements and ideas that they may have, through to the big day itself and finally to showing all of the photographs to the couple on the computer, on a digital album or via this web site.