2021 09 Go West Old Man (Part Five: Falling For Horses--Literally)

Woke up today with this visitor outside my front door

Wednesday, September 15

Today found us having to make a choice about where we would want to view the horses come in. I decided to stand on the rail near our workshop in order to get yet another new view of the arrival.

After the arrival, I decided to make another visit to the corral for the cutting.

After breakfast, we headed to the studio for demos of photo transfers and shellac burns. Today there is a sense of urgency in the workshop as we all know that we have only one day left to get our work accomplished. 

Somewhere in here was dinner and more work in the studio after. Then it was to the cabin and bed as we are going to be done tomorrow.

Thursday, September 16

Today I decided I was going to go to the bridge on the creek just on the other side of the road to see the wranglers riding out to herd the horses. While the sun is not yet up, it is light enough to see where I was going. The rock filled stream flows gently under a short bridge which I thought would be the ideal location to shoot the wranglers crossing the water on their way to Chocolate Drop.

I lifted the camera to my eye--and promptly fell out the bridge onto the rocks below.

To stay I was stunned would be an understatement and it hurt like hell. While I was laying there trying to figure out if my leg was broken when I heard the wranglers heading down the hill to the creek.

Amazingly, I snapped these photos as they rode by (the camera has really lightened the scene) and no one wondered why I was laying on the ground. I guess they thought I wanted the angle.

After the wranglers left, I managed to determine that although my leg was sore, no bones were harmed in the making of these photos.

I decided to stay on the bridge to try to capture the horses going through the stream on the way back to the corral. 

Then I moved up to the fence line where I could have climbed over the fence if my leg was not killing me so I decided to stand inside the fence and photograph the herd as it worked its way up the hill.

When you make the decision to photograph and spend the time looking through the view finder, sometimes interesting things happen.

I started to photograph this big boy until I realized he was as curious about me as I was of him. This is the photograph I shot of him just before he stuck his big nose in my camera lens. All worked out after I gave him a nose rub and he worked out my fingers were not carrots. 

Today was spent eating three meals, finishing our projects and then cleaning up in time to have a review of what we did. Here are photos of some of the work done by my fellow students.

When I got home I had a chance to photograph my work:

My photograph

The Daily Surprise of My Being

My photograph

The Daily Surprise of My Being

So this brings an end to the workshop and our time as a group. Everyone has different travel plans and mine are to hang around tomorrow until noon before I go get Denice at the airport. 

Friday, September 17

After the last roundup, I had breakfast. After packing up, I was off the ranch at 10:00 a.m. bringing an end to a great week on the Eaton Ranch in Wyoming. 

2021 09 Go West Old Man (Part Four--Dude! You Can Lead a Horse to Wax!)

Tuesday, September 14

Better not come to this dude ranch to photograph horses unless you want to get it at sunrise every day. Today the plan was to get up early enough to meet at 6:30 a.m. to walk up onto Chocolate Drop. Today, rather than have the horses come to us, we are going to them. 

These photos were taken as the sun was rising so it was a challenge

Somewhere out in the darkness the wranglers are beginning to gather the herd. 

As the sun appeared more and more, the horses began to drift towards us on their own.

While the horses are waiting to run the gauntlet back to the corral, some of them are calm enough to be models for us

When the wranglers arrive with a group, it is a little unnerving to stand in the way and we are advised not to stand on any of the well-worn paths

Snake!

Wrangler trails the herd with a watchful eye for slackers

When the herd is ready, they are driven over the edge of the field into the drop over the stream and to the gate outside the ranch.

Everyone does not always play nice

The wranglers bring up the rear for a reason (check out the white horse to the right trying to do something off trail). This herd is heading over the stream, to a gate, which once open will let them run past the fences where we have stood the last two days to take their photos.

After we walk over the same trail the horses took, we head up to the corral for more close-ups. Before I visit the horses, I find a few things that attracted my lens. 

After breakfast, we head over to the barn for a group morning ride. While we are waiting for everyone, there is time to shoot the horses still in the corral. 

I finally got a good photo of me horse, Carlton, being saddled just for me. 

We ride out as a group from the ranch for a site called Indian Rocks.

The view from Indian Rocks

Our guide was nice enough to act as a model for our photo shoot. 

I took a whole bunch of photos of Kelley's Mom horsing around with Carlton,

until we were told to mount up and I realized this is not my horse

After lunch time we had a free period to work our magic in the art room. When class restarted around 3:00 p.m., we worked on using tissue paper photo transfers.

On Tuesdays, the staff practices their roping skills in the cow corral and we were invited to turn it into a photo shoot. 

After dinner, we were back in the studio for the evening to work on tiling multiple tissue paper images together. 

When class was over, I went back to my cabin and worked on a collage in honor of all the flies we have been dealing with in the studio.