Nevada's wild horses have been on my mind since I photographed them the first time around 6 months ago. I knew I had to go back and spend more time with them.
For this trip I had 8 full days of hanging out with them and photographing! Each day I set out to search for them, driving the gravel roads through some of the most spectacular landscapes I have ever seen. Sometimes spotting the horses from my car was easier than other times. I got pretty good at noticing a tiny dot of white or orange among the hundreds of acres sprawled outside my window. Before I committed to hiking to that dot though, I would take a picture and enlarge it to verify it was indeed a horse and not a rock. Once I knew for sure that indeed it was horses, I hiked over to them, pulled up a rock and had a front row seat to whatever theatre was destined to play out in front of me. Having all day to spend with them allowed me to be able to really take my time and soak in all the beauty...the horses themselves, of course, and the stunning mountain ranges which provided breath taking backdrops! There's no better way to spend my time than in the presence of beauty. I breathe it in and it saturates the core of my being.
Cold Creek, Nevada
Cold Creek, Nevada
Cold Creek, Nevada
Can you find me?
Nose to the ground. What horses do best. They basically just want to live in peace.
I usually stayed with a herd until either they paraded off in the direction opposite of me, (perhaps wanting to escape my presence), or until I felt like I had worn out my welcome.
I am constantly assessing whether my invasion into their space is perceived as unwelcomed, threatening, or benign by the herd. If my actions cause them to alter their behaviors, then I need to consider that I am too close or unwanted and adjust my actions accordingly. Sometimes I can get away with following them from a distance and this seems to help them acclimate to my presence. If they continue grazing, if they nap, nurse, or roll in the dirt, I can safely assume they feel comfortable with my presence. That is what usually happened. My presence is ignored as if Im just a part of the scenery to them. This is what I prefer because then I can take my time and observe or move around to achieve the composition Im looking for. Movement on my part almost always results in a few heads popping up from their grazing to study me curiously. If Im too abrupt they might startle and move quickly away a few yards or worse, start a stampede within the herd.
There's no entertainment better than watching two bachelor stallions play fight. It can be comical at times watching them play 'Take Down,' where they try to take the other down to his knees.
Whenever I see the potential for action between the horses, whether its play fighting, a squabble between herd members, or an incoming herd prompting snorts, posturing, and fighting, I often find a cactus, a Joshua tree, or a large rock to put between me and the action. Even still, when the horses are rough playing or fighting for real, I am at risk for getting in the way. Safety for myself and the horses is always on my mind and something I have been lucky with thus far. Having a background knowledge of the nature of horses is helpful for sure but certainly blending in with the scenery helps too.
They seemed to be a couple. For now anyway. I seemed to run into them a lot.
The welcoming committee!
This is what greeted me when we did a quick stop after leaving the airport to go to our hotel.
Tara Kilpatrick, BLM volunteer for wild horses and burros since 2007, has logged thousands of hours monitoring, observing,and documenting these wild horses. (check out westoflasvegas.com for hundreds of photos and her documentaion) I asked her how many horses there are and she reports that she personally has identified over 250. It becomes increasingly difficult to get a good count of the numbers particularly with the cremellos because they all look so similar. Additionally, a horse’s coat color and markings can change with the season and as they mature. When I go somewhere to photograph wild horses it is my goal to photograph as many different ones as I can. I experienced on a more superficial level the difficulty Tara described in counting each horse only once. Generally speaking, palominos look similar- a caramel color body and a flaxen mane and tail and some kind of white markings on the face. To differentiate between individuals you have to often look at markings on the legs or the shape and size of the face markings. This is the same problem with buckskins and cremellos and even the painted palominos and painted buckskins all look similar! But overall I think a good conservative estimate of the number of individuals I photographed would be around 50 give or take.
Look at the diversity of color and coat patterns! Painted buckskin, painted palamino, bay, and paint.
Painted palamino
I love his 'plus' sign!
I enjoyed watching this stallion. He was on high alert, actively guarding his herd.
Pair of painted buckskins.
I waited a long time for them to wake up to get their picture! I didnt mind the wait at all.
Such a cutie!
Black stallion in Cold Creek, Nevada. Snow capped mountains are a beautiful backdrop
Cold Creek, Nevada
Cold Creek, Nevada
"What do you want?!"
Cold Creek, Nevada
Cold Creek, Nevada
I love her cute little ears and her stunning coloring!
Im afraid a slight movement I made startled him. He was especially skittish anyway but I try not to make surprising noises
Permed mane and forelock
Parade of beauty
I am just beginning to learn about the history of these horses and the plight they face. Too little forage, threats posed by the public, rapid turn around time between a mare giving birth and becoming pregnant again, stallion stealing often resulting in foal mortality, harsh temperatures, are all factors that negatively impact these gorgeous creatures. I think I have a responsibility to know and understand the hardships they face but at the same time I wish I didn’t know because it is just too sad. It seems unfair that the very thing that gives me such joy should have such a difficult and hard life.
Goodbye my love! I will keep this mental image of your beauty in my mind and in my heart and it will color my world with hope.
