Friends
Mongolia 2014…Hustai National Park
The last of the wild horses roam free in a preserve on the grasslands of Mongolia. Called Przewalski horses after the Russian explorer who first described them, they are a stocky, dun colored breed with upright manes. Their eyes seem much smaller than the domestic horse which are large and luminous.
The Przewalski horses were not fearful of us as we stalked them with our cameras, but they kept their distance. The stallion stationed himself between us and the herd and he kept a close watch on our position. When we got too close, he drove the herd in the opposite direction.
Thanks to instincts of the horses to keep us at a distance, I was unable to get any close up shots. This shot is severely cropped. That is one reason I turned it into a rather ethereal looking high key portrait. That way the graininess is diminished. One way you can do this is to drag the clarity slider all the way to the left in Photoshop’s Bridge. You can also use plug-ins such as Color Efex Pro.
As you see, I’ve just returned from a trip to Mongolia. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Kazakh people of Western Mongolia. These men and women, who seemed have taken a few days’ leave from marauding with Genghis Khan’s army, displayed the hunting skills of their Golden Eagles at a Festival near Bayan-Olgii. Truly it was a step back in time and I look forward to showing you my photos and telling you my stories.