Be mindful, take a camera

Last summer a friend told me my next book project should be "how to take good horse pictures." This morning as a I read a short chapter from Allan Hamilton's Zen Mind Zen Horse, I connected Felicity's advice with the message about focusing our attention on the now when we work with our horses. My mind likes to wander, and it occurred to me that photography is a great way to stay focused. The day I took these pictures at Crupi's Newcastle farm in December 2018, the fillies who arrived a week earlier were being moved to their large, lush pasture where they would stay for the next six months, just being horses.

It was a long walk from the barns to the pasture and I accepted a golf cart ride so I could get better pictures. The trick was to hop off the golf cart and capture the action before the fillies and their handlers arrived at their destination. The action was fast, and there was no time to be thinking about other things. I knew instinctively I had to stay focused, no time for other thoughts. For an hour the action and images were all I thought about. Whether you're a horse owner or just love horses, take your camera and get lost in the imgages that horses present to us any time we're in their presence.

The colts

The colts were turned out a few days before the fillies. They were all eyes as the girls and their grooms calmly made their way to the pasture. During the "parade," the boys stuck close to each other watching, soon they galloped off to get a closer look.