Sometimes good ideas really do come like bolts of lightning. In early June, I went to my best friend and co-collaborator, Aloyse Blair’s, bachelorette party. We all flew out to Colorado for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where her sister Cecie, had rented a mansion on the ski hill serviced by private cars and a gondola. Aloyse and I had gone to Bluegrass several times when we were in our late teens and this was such a wonderful opportunity to go back.
We spent four days dancing, drinking, and having an incredible time with thirteen of the most wonderful girls on the planet. One day, while getting beers at the festival, it suddenly, with no warning, dawned on me that I should take photos with our horses. Although it might seem obvious, given that my family lives on a horse ranch, it had actually never even crossed my mind. Long exposure horses: “ghost horses.” When I got home from the festival, I told my mom who just laughed and said that she had been wondering when I would figure it out.
A few weeks later, after getting back from Montana, while I was taking my workshop at Anderson Ranch, I decided to start experimenting. I took my mom on a moonless night, and headed out into the field to meet my two elected models, George and Stoli. I had to have help with this shoot because the horses were really excited to have company and would have clearly knocked the tripod over. We used a few small lights to illuminate the horses from the front while I did my best not to get trampled.
As per my workshop, I tried to stay close to the camera and tell a story, to bring on the theater. One of the other exercises from the workshop was to choose the title for the image before it was made. The title of the first image below (and my favorite) is, “This Time She Came Prepared,” or as Arno nicknamed it, “George the Fire Eating Horse.” I am really happy with this work and I can’t wait to keep experimenting with horses in the future.
