On the Run
My wife and I drove 2,000 miles to find and photograph completely wild horses. Little did we know how amazing they would be, undomesticated, untamed and roaming free.
There are only about 140 horses in 120,000 acres of wilderness! You can go days without seeing a horse. 
We set up camp in a small, unprotected tent in the middle of nowhere, at the mercy of the elements. 
I was up until midnight, shooting the beautiful stars and Milky Way. You could see millions of bright stars, far away from any city lights. It was truly magical. 
The night’s sleep, however, was NOT magical  My wife and I aren’t youngsters anymore, and it had been years since we’d tent camped. So, we bought the usual items: tent, air mattress, camp stove, etc. That first night we realized we hadn’t considered something very important: our weight difference! 
The night before we had stayed in a campground on our way to Wyoming, and that was the first time we used the mattress. Every time I moved, she rolled into me, and every time one of us got up (for the frequent restroom visits) the other sank to the ground. By morning, there was very little air in that mattress!
Something else we didn’t know: Open air mattresses are not returnable! My wife is cheap (she says frugal), and she didn’t want to spend more money to get 2 separate twin mattresses; so we decided to pile up the blankets and sleeping bags and make us a cozy little bed. 
It was not cozy.
We did our best to find an area without rocks or brush, but even the tiniest pebble can feel like o was being slowly stabbed in my back, in my leg, in my skull…. Everywhere! 
On top of that, we again had to get up for restroom trips. Now remember, we are the only humans in a vast desert. There were no restrooms, so we had to just squat wherever as we heard coyotes and wondered if rattlesnakes or other creatures would be up and about.  Thank goodness we survived each day and each night! And it would all be worth it.
We had spent DAYS looking for horses to no avail, but unknown to us yet, this day would be different. 
We awoke the next morning well before the crack of dawn. The prairie was so flat that the entire sky was filled with the sun's red glow hours before you actually saw it come over the horizon. 
The cool air helped to wake us as well, a welcome respite from the heat of the day. 
We started our day: got up, took a restroom break, and started the coffee. There’s just something special about the smell of coffee in the open air! 
That’s when it happened: I felt something to my right, a shadow, a presence.  I whipped around and came face to face with a wild horse not eight feet from me!
We completely forgot about the taste of coffee, and we quietly followed the horse as it slowly walked away. 
We continued to gently follow at a distance. We didn't move more than 100 feet... when we spotted another horse coming from another direction, and then another horse. And then another one, and another, and another!
It seemed like dozens of horses were all converging on this one spot. After days of looking for horses, we had unknowingly camped just 100 yards from a watering hole!!
A total of 38 horses gathered to drink, and I spent about 3 hours, burning through memory card after memory card, capturing unforgettable images that I know I will never get the chance to ever see again!
Here’s where this shot comes in. At one point, three horses walked right by us, as we stood motionless. We watched. I shot. My wife recorded. It took our breath away that we could be a part of their day, but they really didn’t even seem to notice.
I recognized one of them instantly (the black and white one) - Washaki. I have shot him before.  Now Washaki has a reputation of getting in other stallions’ business. He is NOT well loved, but at this moment he was just minding his own business with 2 other horses. 
We kept watching and shooting, when into my field of view ran another stallion. It seemed he and Washaki were not best buddies, and this other horse broke into full gallop, chasing Washaki and the others out of view.  Check out the video in the image gallery!
I don’t ordinarily shoot the backside of horses, but this experience was so powerful I knew it needed to be captured and shared. 
The emotional connection with these incredible creatures was as intimate as I'll ever experience with completely wild horses. 
I captured hundreds of pictures, dozens of which are now hanging on people's walls around the world, but the emotional journey and disbelief of getting to witness such rare events... has forever changed me and my love for horses.