Rosie and Ellie

I grew up around horses. My dad's Aunt Betty was the first horse lover in the family that I remember. One of my first memories was riding one of her horses around in a pair of pink terry cloth shorts, why do I remember what I was wearing? I think because it was one of those hot summer Texas afternoons and I wasn't wearing a shirt.. HA. I guess that was okay for a sassy four year old.  

        Our first horse was named Joe, he was an ancient quarter horse, at least he seemed ancient to me at the time. The second was a big fat Palomino named  Dawn, and then Matt, my dad's buckskin who looked exactly like Matt Dillon's horse on Gunsmoke. We called him Buck. When I was little I could saddle them myself or ride bareback through the fields in between driving our old white truck Lurch. I was probably 12.. barely. Those were the 70's.  In this lifetime, now that I spend alot of my time around some of the sweetest and most  beautiful horses I've ever seen, I wanted to start photographing them. They are so difficult to capture well, and when I see portraits of horses that take my breath away, I get excited for the day when I might get that chance to capture the spirit of what I consider the most majestic of all of our animal friends.