Best in Show: Horses with Hair Extensions Wow the Web

by Danny Davids⁽³⁹⁾

It was a project started on a whim, and took three years to make the mainstream news. Now everybody wants to know: Hair extensions for horses? Who came up with this crazy idea, and why?

Blame advertising photographer Julian Wolkenstein. One day three years ago he was chatting with a fellow ad buddy, who just happened to speculate what it would be like to work with horses with big hair. The idea stuck in the Austalian photographer's mind, and he decided to take on the project as a personal one, rather than as a business opportunity for a client.

" It is important to do personal projects just for fun, not to sell anything, but just to remind you why you make images, " he explains, " but mostly, and simply, to make you smile. "

Wolkenstein contacted prominent hair-stylist Acacio da Silva, who signed on to the project. The end result was photographs of three horses in very human-looking hairstyles.

The project was not without its difficulties. " Each horse took about four hours to groom, with hair extensions being added by Acacio, and then when they were presented in front of the cameras and lights they would shake their heads, give a neigh and then ruffle up their hair, " Wolkenstein grins. " To get them just right, with their hair all set and standing to attention was a bit of a battle. But the horses loved the grooming. "

What was expected to take a few hours turned into a full-day affair, what with setting -- and resetting -- hairstyles, getting the horses to stand still in front of the cameras, and so on. The end result, however, was simply amazing.

Because this was a personal project, it took nearly three years from initial shoot to the final results making it to the Web and being noticed. However, everyone who sees the pictures has an opinion. Some like it; some don't. Many want to ask Wolkenstein why he got involved in something like this.

His response? " Of course, sometimes -- as these pictures show -- it's better to live life by asking, why not? "

Article submitted Wednesday, April 15, 2009 & read 141 times.

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