Running With Wild Horses
Photographing wild horses is an adventure in endurance, patience, taking calculated risks, exploring unknown places, sitting still at times, observing, predicting their next move, and intermittent rounds of aerobics and calisthenics interspersed throughout! Though I'm not literally running with the wild horses, I am pacing with them, moving with them.
By the end of a shooting day I am dusty, dehydrated, & drained, but full; full of memories of the day's events and experiences, full of excitement and anticipation for what the range will gift me the next day. I feel full of all good things; my cup runneth over!
It's a good day when I return from the range with the thought that if tomorrow's trip isn't productive, it's still been worthwhile. Im tuckered out, tickled, thrilled, thankful, & tired! It's one of the best kinds of tired I know of- the kind of tired that generates an almost drug like induced state of relaxation.
As I'm driving back from the range, looking forward to a shower and recapping the day with Dwight, a huge smile spreads across my face just thinking about the events from the day and looking forward with great excitement to reviewing my images. I almost enjoy that part as much as the actual shooting! I get to relive the moments and all those feels once again!
With the impending roundup of this particular herd scheduled for this summer, I had mixed feelings about making this trip. I for sure wanted to see them again, photograph them in their beautiful home, to sit with them :& move with them; to run with them. But I knew despite all that, my experience would be underscored with sadness. There's nothing more I can do, apart from what I have done. Like all the other 100,000 wild horse advocates, I have written letters, sent emails, and made phone calls to key politicians who could affect the outcome I want. But it is out of my control and if I dwell on it, it just angers me, overshadowing the moment of the day, the moment I have with the horses while they are still wild, free, enjoying their protection under federal law.
And so, my focus was on that. This is how I want to remember them and my time with them- running with them, wild and free and protected.
The range in the Onaqui Mountains of Utah covers over 200,000 acres and approximately 450 wild horses have made this beautiful area their home since the late 1800's. Where did these horses come from?
The general consensus is they are descendants of the Standard Horse and Mule Company, (which provided remounts for the U.S. Army), combined with other horses that escaped nearby ranches or were turned loose.
Running with wild horses
is a gift of beauty and wonder
To see their flying manes and tails,
to hear the hooves that thunder;
To hear the sweet whinny
of a mare to her foal,
Or witness a stampede
to the watering hole;
To watch a stallion run
"A drinker of the wind"
ALways alert and ready,
To protect his band
To see their valiant survival
in the face of unjust forces
I am humbled and honored to be
Running with wild horses.