Horses in the Wild are not Always Wild Horses

 

 

 

When I came back from my long walk in the desert and put my gear in the car, I heard a gentle noise behind me. It is usually a hare or a rabbit running from brush to brush. This time, it was a black horse, alone and at a slow pace.

He walked toward me, stopped and wondered about my presence. And I wondered about his appearance on the vast and open desert. I could not see if he had horse shoes, but I did not think he was a wild horse.

I said hello, and my voice did not bother him. So I decided to take a picture.

Then, he turned his head back and looked at the open space behind him. I looked too. And, out of nowhere a beautiful pony showed up at the horizon.

She was black and white, just like my photography, and walking at the same slow pace as the horse did. The slow moving white dot got bigger and gave the delightful contrast to the brown, sandy environment.

The horse waited for the pony. When they got together, it was black and white, in perfect harmony. They both looked at me for a short while.

Then unhurried and content, they walked away.

It was all desert again around me, after an unreal moment that passed like a dream. Almost a hallucination. Yet, a unique horse and pony show to which I was an accidental spectator.

And I recalled Mark Twain writing

              “If the horses knew their strength we should not ride anymore”

Well, as a street photographer who fancies the desert as his "untaken street", I did not see any strength or dominance that morning. Just a caring equine companionship between  two majestic animals of unequal size and shape, under the high noon sun.

September 13, 2025

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025

 

 

PS/ There are wild horses in Arizona that are descendants of Spanish mustangs. But they are not usually in the area where I was.

There are also wild donkey descendants of the beasts of burden used by miners a century ago. I have found horse and donkey skeletons petrified in the desert, from those who succumbed to time or the aggressiveness of coyotes.

In my own way of thinking about metamorphosis, I have given these skeletons and skulls a second chance. Here are a couple of examples:

https://vaheark.blogspot.com/2018/02/shining-light-on-donkey-jawbone.html

https://vaheark.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-unicorn-with-more-than-one-cornus.html

A Drive through Southern Arizona with a 1971 Nikkor-P 180mm Lens in the Passenger Seat

 

 

It is monsoon season in Arizona and driving a 400 km stretch of open desert roads under cloudy and rainy skies provides a unique view of the environment. That is especially true when passing through small towns where a few habitations remain functional along with many others that have been abandoned but keep a nostalgic feel of times that have passed but remain visually tangible to those who drive at high speeds through that space-time moment.

I often have a camera with me and keep a keen eye on what I could encounter, although it is difficult to stop my car when the speed limit is 75 km/hour. Sometimes herds of antelope will be along the road, other times abandoned housing structures along the road where mining towns once thrived. So I favor a short telephoto, always a vintage one, mounted on a vintage film camera.

This time I took my Nikon F3 HP along, with a very early (1971) Nikkor-P 180mm 2.8. Since the skies were covered and the typical desert bright sun absent, I thought a fast lens would be necessary.

The Nikkor is the original Non Ai version that had been professionally Ai’d. Over the past 32 years I have taken memorable photos with this lens worldwide, so it is one of those lenses, although heavy to carry, that has helped me keep special moments through monochromatic renditions.

Here is the lens on the F3:

 

And the Ai ring installed to make it functional on later Nikon cameras other than the original Nikon F:

 

The photo atop this page is was one I had to take. So, I saw the scene while driving through a small town, stopped my car a few hundred meters passed it, and returned to take the photo through the passenger side window. It is both nostalgic and a statement about hanging on to things. Perhaps to an era. Or just to a dream from which one does not want to wake up. And the feeling is captured best in B&W.

 

For this next shot I did not have to return for a photo. I saw this cabin, perhaps as old as the camera and lens I was holding, stand out under the cloudy sky, in the open desert.

 

Interestingly, when I printed the photo, I noticed a detail that I had not seen when taking the shot. A crop of the scanned print revealed an unusual yet charming detail – there was a man’s (woman’s?) bust resting in the sand in front of the cabin.

What was the story of that bust?

In the next photo I wanted to capture the many trailer parks that are along the road. Traveling in a mobile home and stopping at any spot for a short while is a great way to see the country and escape from the busy lifestyle.  Sometimes these “camp grounds” or trailer parks are very well kept; other times they look more casually organized…

 

Finally, when I got to Yuma, the life of a bigger and cosmopolitan city was there to welcome me. I wanted a find a composition where the slow-paced Southwest and busy cosmopolitan livings converged.

Maybe this represents that co-existence.

 

September 5, 2025

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025