Horses
A couple of horses, seen roadside, while driving between Houston and Dallas, Texas.
Last year I took a three-week trip, by car, to the great state of Wisconsin — my birth state. The whole purpose of the trip was to gather as many autumnal photos as I could for my personal/decorative archives and, to a lesser extent, for the purpose of licensing. I had envisioned a trip with glorious weather, foggy mornings and fall foliage galore. I got the foliage, lots of it. And there were three foggy mornings, short in duration, but exhilarating for this fog-loving photographer. The weather, however, the weather was a tyrant. The first four days in Wisconsin brought tornadoes to the southern part of the state and lashing rain with thunderous booms to the central and western cities. For two days, I was pretty much holed up in my hotel — my cameras bored to tears.
But, it started out gloriously, the road to Wisconsin. That long trek through the Lone Star State — Houston, Texas to Norman, Oklahoma — was buoyed by sunny skies, Foo Fighters music and that adrenaline one gets as they set off on a highly-anticipated road trip. There were the usual stops and shout-outs — the giant Sam Houston statue near Huntsville, the Buc-ees pit-stop in Madisonville, the drive-in movie theater outside of Dallas. And then there were the feeder roads — the lone tree on a swath of otherwise barren land, the weathered, if not fully dilapidated, barn…and the horses.
I met the horses in my photo, horses, somewhere between Madisonville and Dallas. There were a lot of them…running and playing in the sunshine. I pulled off I-45, doubled back on the feeder road, and stopped next to a fence surrounding the property to take some country-fied action shots. That only worked so long because before I could say “cheese,” a couple of them ran up to me — an adult and a youngster. The little one was curious, but not as brave as the adult. I dare say the horse was sheepish, if I may be so corny. So I took a few photos, trying to focus on that very character trait, took a few of the other horses, now grazing, and then I headed onward to Oklahoma!
I’d only have one more fully sunny day ahead of me before the rains would make their stand.
Technical Details: 70mm, 2.8f, 1/800sec, 640ISO. Canon products.
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