Category / McCullough Peaks

by Equus ferus Wild Horse Photography

GETTING READY for the MUSTANG WALKABOUT 2016

Today I took out and examined my equipment (happy dance)…

Camera: I bring a Canon 7D Mark ii and a back-up Canon Rebel T3ii. The lenses fit both. I usually have them professionally cleaned over the winter so they are ready for the spring, summer, and autumn photography trips.

Lenses: I use a 100-400mm image stabilised Canon lens most of the time. The Rebel has a 18-135 mm for panoramic vistas. I carry both in the field to make sure my lenses overlap. I also have a 18-55 mm but that won’t cover the area from 55-100 mm so I bring the 18-135 mm. This way I have a full range of lens choice that overlap. A lot of camera stores sell refurbished used lenses and this is a great way to get a lens for a reduced price.  You must have a lens with a minimum distance of 300 mm because you cannot approach the horses closer than 100 feet in most management areas so a long lens is crucial.

Memory Cards: I buy new cards every year. The most important thing is the speed and the size. Get a size that you won’t have to swap cards out frequently, but make sure to have extras. I find the highest speeds to be the best for mustang photography. For the SD Cards, go for 90-95mb/sec read/write and Class 3. Compact Flash Cards come in 120mb/s for the high speed setting. You want to be able to use the camera’s rapid fire capability, so you’ll want the card to match the speed of the camera. I also recommend many smaller sized cards versus one huge card. I usually carry 64MB, 32MB and few 16MB.

If something spectacular happens (and it often does), those photos may turn out to be some of your best work, take the card out of the camera and put it in a safe place when the action is over. The precious photos will be safe and you won’t have to deal with a card failure (rare, but it happens). I kept my first photos of Picasso on a CF Card and carried all the way home after backing it up multiple times.  Another trick- I keep empty cards in my right pocket, and used cards in my left. They are numbered 1,2,3 etc and this way I instantly know what cards are used and which are empty.

Batteries: I carry four. Two are in the battery-grip for the camera all the time and so far, I haven’t had to replace the double battery even after 12 hours of shooting. But I always carry four freshly charged batteries in the field. The back-up camera has a single battery and I carry a spare. We charge them using car charger adaptors or we also use a PowerVerter or Power Inverter which offers plugs and uses the car lighter for the power source. We charge batteries while we drive to save time.

Monopod/Tripod: There are wonderful to stabilise your camera. At places like the waterhole, there is a lot of action going on all the time. Karen usually has one leg of her tripod extended and she will drop the other two if it looks like we will be stationary for a while. I usually carry the tripod with all three legs extended.

External Hard Drives: I carry a 2TB hard drive and a ColorSpace UDMA2 and I upload every night. I don’t even look at the photos until they are backed-up on two external hard drives and then, sparingly. Once I am home, they get backed up via the Cloud and the hard drive goes into the safe. Only then do I go through all the photos. The nice part about the ColorSpace is functions as a hard drive AND as a file viewer with a nice sized LCD screen.

Computer/ Laptop: I bring my Macbook into the field. It is very light and has a nice sized screen. I opted for the Macbook over the Macbook-Air because the Macbook run Photoshop- always useful to have to examine photos if necessary or after they are backed-up.

Binoculars: As an avid bird watcher, I have a good sturdy pair. You’ll need them for the bands in the distance.  I have a simple pair of 8×42 Bushnell.

Sundries:

  • Snake bite kit, yes there are snakes out on the range. So far, no one has been bitten, just watch where you put your feet at all times. The Prairie Rattlesnake is generally docile but even the shyest snake will bite if it is stepped on. Some people wear snake-gaiters and I carry a pair.
  • Sunscreen- tons of the stuff
  • Cooling evaporative towel (Frog Tog)
  • Lens cleaning kits
  • Storm covers- some of the best photos are just before a storm but protect your camera at all times.
  • Food/water/cellphone with car charger

*Always let some know where you are, how long you plan to be there and when you expect to return.

by Equus ferus Wild Horse Photography

Painting Wild Horses in the Field with Karen McLain or "En Plein Air"

“All pictures painted inside in the studio will never be as good as the things done outside.”

-Paul Cezanne

I have a rule about not looking at all the photos from a summer trip until they have been backed up at least twice. Sure I scan through them but not really look too closely until all 30,000+ photos are safely backed up on my new 6TB hard drive and up in the Carbonite Cloud. So as I wait, not very patiently, for the over 400,000 files to transfer to the new hard drive… I sat back and remembered the trip…

Karen at McCullough Peaks 2014



Watching Karen McLain paint horses during the Mustang Walkabout 2015 was educational and interesting. I admit I know nothing about painting anything aside from a summer job painting houses on Long Island Sound… And perhaps a set or two from a play or musical, but that’s the limit of my painting skill. I do, however, like to understand the process from a more scientific background since that’s my training, thus I asked Karen numerous questions.

“When you’re on the spot, you’re seeing the best values, the cleanest color and real edges. You’re also seeing objects in a wonderful light, and you’re much more apt to paint a clear, un-muddied picture.”
-Wayne E. Wolfe
Karen paints en plein air, or in the field with live subjects and as a photographer of wild horses, I can tell you they don’t stand still, not at all. Even when they don’t move their feet, they are swishing at flies, or turning their heads. When they do move their feet, it is challenging to keep them in the lens field, let alone try to paint them accurately. But somehow Karen accomplishes just that. She keeps a camera handy to shoot reference photos just in case her subjects spook or decide the grass is indeed greener elsewhere. I asked her why doesn’t she simply concentrate on getting a good reference shot and painting at her studio in a more relaxed and leisurely manner.
Here’s what she said…
Karen paints at Sand Wash Basin

Painting from a photograph is useful and sometimes necessary if your subject is not local or endangered or simply not readily accessible. However danger comes with painting a photograph and not the actual subject represented in the photograph- and therefore inaccuracies may be introduced and perspective is lost. There is a critical difference in painting a three-dimensional object as opposed to a two-dimensional representation and it shows in the finished painting.  Karen explained that being there, at the moment the paint is first put to canvas, is critical in understanding the light, the shadows, ambient light, reflected light, and negative shapes (I’m still not sure what these ‘negative shapes‘ are- they are elusive but they much sought after by painters). After some musing, I think painting from a photograph- without the memory of actually being there- is much like me photographing a photograph. It can be done, especially those with great skill, but something essential is missing from the finished piece…

“As difficult as it is painting outdoors, there is no where else I’d rather work – all the answers stand right before you. You may need to move some things around, but it is still all right there in front of you. A bit like taking an open book test.” 
-William F. Reese

All of these features combine and Karen paints ‘in the moment‘; very much in the Buddhist tradition of the here and now or the present moment. She finishes the vast majority of the painting in the field because she says the paintings looks very different when she brings them indoors and so the essence must be captured as swiftly as she can manage. One would think the painting would look hurried and inaccurate but Karen practices endlessly. She attends numerous workshops, studies techniques, she is well-versed in equine anatomy surpassing even my prodigious knowledge base on that topic, and she spends a great deal of time studying her subjects both in the field and with her horses in their paddocks at home. A strong understanding of equine ethology is critical in representing them faithfully in art. Endless exercises on a white board to hone her accuracy and speed, Karen draws, erases and redraws horses: standing, walking, grazing, interacting, fighting. And she wipes a lot of paintings off when they don’t quite measure up… literally or figuratively.
Painting Picasso -Sand Wash Basin 2015

I watched her prepare her palette. To me it looked like orderly blobs of colour along the circumference of a glass rectangle with the centre area reserved for mixing these fascinating blobs. Each management area has a unique palette of colours. The Pryors need more green; the bright grass green and the darker pine green with the occasional purple lupine and white or yellow asters.  The McCullough Peaks have rich red rock and Sand Wash Basin is soft pastels of brown, cream, tan, sage and slate blue. Even the horses found at each location have customized palettes- the Pryors are abundant in primitive colours- duns, blacks, deep bays, smokey grullas, and the creamy palominos of the Cloud family. Spring Creek Basin is awash in greys, duns, buckskin and dark bays. The Salt River horses have few greys and no paints so the concentration is on chestnuts and bays as well as the river itself. McCullough Peaks and Sand Wash Basin are the most brilliant with paints, overos, tobianos, dilutions, sooty, splashed whites and every other conceivable coat colour combination. The time of day and the weather also influence the choice of colours Karen selects for each palette.




It is almost magical watching her paint swiftly and decisively that I think, only comes after years and years of practice. I marvel at her ability to turn squiggles and lines into a horse standing in front of me. It is pretty amazing. Please view Karen’s beautiful paintings at her website and/or Facebook Page 

-Meredith
Equus ferus Wild Horse Photography
July 2015

by Equus ferus Wild Horse Photography

Mustang Walkabout 2015

As I sit at 30,000 feet flying to my home in New York, I find myself reflecting over the past two weeks. Karen and I went to three Horse Management Areas: McCullough Peaks, Pryor Mountain and Sand Wash Basin.  We camped out in the horse ranges and we had the privilege of sharing the lives of these magnificent creatures and my photography will be all the better for such intimate contact. It wasn’t easy, the temperatures never dropped below 90 F during the day, the dust was abundant and I had altitude sickness on Pryor Mountain… 

But we persevered and rose each day at dawn and photographed until the sun was directly overhead when we took lunch and a siesta. We resumed photographing the horses until dusk. We drove all over the management areas and often hiking mile after mile to find the mustangs. We drank water and Fresca by the gallon, made cream of wheat in the morning & yaku soba noodles in the evening and treated ourselves to s’mores. We listened to coyotes, thunder and the sound of horses running by our camp… And we photographed- all aspects of the mustangs living free.  Karen took time to paint while I photographed.  We met and spent time with some extraordinary people like Patty, Deb, Rachel, Connie, Robin, Julie, Michael, Heather by proxy…

Still, it is nice to return home, and see the family. I missed Abby, Ben and Bruce as well as my Thoroughbred Ashe and all our pugs plus Stormy and of course, Puppy. It will be wonderful to have a shower every day, indoor plumbing, electricity on demand  and to  luxuriate in air conditioning. But I miss the mustangs and the camaraderie of the other horse people,  especially my best friend Karen.  We are already planning our next Mustang Walkabout for 2016. But before then, I have over 30,000 photographs to catalog and to edit, a new website to update and go live, a book to write, a research paper on ‘Stallion Infanticide’ to finish, and this incredibly fun thing I call work… I miss my patients and my colleagues. I missed my 34-string Celtic floor harp more than I thought and can’t wait to practice. But each evening, when the sun gets low, my thoughts will turn to the horses- is Picasso okay? How is Cloud doing? How are all the new foals thriving?

Thank you for joining Karen and I on this incredible journey of sharing the lives of the wild horses of North America with the world through art and photography… 
-Meredith & Karen
http://www.equusferus.com
http://karenmclain.com/