Photos of Wild Horses at Return to Freedom

 

Sulphur Herd Stallion and Mare

Wild Horses Running

 

Sunlit Horses

 

 

 

Last month I attended another fantastic photography workshop at the Return to Freedom wild horse sanctuary.  The workshop was led by the zen master of capturing stunning photos of wild horses, Tony Stromberg.  The sanctuary’s approach to creating an environment where the horses live in more or less free roaming family herds in large pastures within the 300 acres of the sanctuary, creates an incredible opportunity to see, walk among, and photograph these horses.    The sanctuary keeps unique genetic strains of the American wild horse intact, including the Sulpher herd, Hart mountain herd, Kiger herd, and the Choctaw pony.  The animals in these different herds are unique and strikingly beautiful.

 

 The herds are fundamentally still wild, but under the careful coaching and guidance of sanctuary staff and Tony, we were taught how to move and communicate with the horses with our body language, and voices so that we could get quite close to the herds without spooking them.  The intelligence ,beauty, and spirit of these animals, particularly in this environment is captivating.  Neda Demayo, the director of the sanctuary has big plans for wild horses, and this sanctuary is just the start.  Return to freedom is working on creating a large land trust, creating thousands of acres for free roaming American wild horse herds.  Return to freedom is also trying through education and lobbying  to redirect the poor management of wild horses on our public lands managed by the Bureau of Land management.  For more information, go to www.returntofreedom.org

 

 

I will be showing some of the images I captured at the sanctuary, as well as other places I have visited to capture my vision of the “ Spirit of the Horse”, at the upcoming show at the Squaw Valley, Art, Wine and Music festival on July 17 and 18^th.  You can also see more new photos of wild horses  at my website at www.lisadearingphotography.com.

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