Wild and Free

That was the status of most of the horses I saw last week!  Some were truly wild, and living in the wild, and never been touched by human hands as far as I know.  Then others who live closer to civilization and many have been mistakenly fed or gotten too close to and tamed too much for their own good.  Those now will wonder into areas where people inhabit and in fact have been been run over and or taken captive.  They have become somewhat of a nuisance due to people feeding them and then them coming to close looking for more food or water.  Still there were others, who had once been wild and later captured through the BLM, perhaps had been auctioned off or left in long term holding pens, who were now set free again.  Those actually had been gentled and tamed, though are not ridden.  So there was a wide variety of the ones I photographed.  The truly most amazing ones were the wild ones.  Even those have been surrounded with big equipment, trucks, and people developing pipelines for gas in the forests where they live.  While they were once afraid totally of people they now will tolerate them to some degree and do not automatically run, but hang around more out of curiousity that anything.   The days were filled with early mornings and ran into the night.  There was not much rest on this trip and we were searching out these animals most of the day.  The trip was lead by an amazing photographer, Lynn Pomerantz, who is very knowledgeable about all the horses and areas she took us too.  These are the nice comments she wrote to me in an email after the workshop.

Hi Robin,

Thank you! And thanks for lunch today and for coming to the workshop. I so enjoyed your company. Hope you will stay in touch. Send me a few of your favorite jpegs from today. I think you have a really great eye. So many of your images reflected a very "fresh" way of seeing. The technical stuff is available for anybody to learn. The seeing part is another matter and I really think that part just comes naturally to you. Really hope to see some of those images in the photo contest.  Hopefully, a light will turn on in your head regarding your job situation. It woul be nice if that happens for me as well!

Have fun in Santa Fe and safe travels.

Hugs,

Lynne

Several of the places Lynne took us to may no longer be places the horses remain.  The BLM is rounding them up even as I write this to be moved into long term holding pens or to be auctioned off.  Blessings I wish for all wild horses and may they continue to roam free as long as they live!