Your Shot photographer F. Dilek Uyar captured this moment in Kayseri, Turkey. “This place lays down in the piedmont of the imposing Mount Erciyes and actually called as a heaven for birds,” she writes. “It ıs not only heaven for birds but also for one who wants to have a break from stressful daily life. You can find peace in the twitter of the birds and even feel the freedom of the wind by riding horse.” Photograph by F. Dilek Uyar
In San Bartolomé de Pinares, Spain, residents celebrate the eve of St. Anthony’s Day with the Luminarias Festival. St. Anthony is the patron saint of domestic animals. One of the traditions of the festival involves riding or jumping horses through bonfires, which is believed to purify the animal and protect it in the year ahead. Townspeople say the practice dates back at least 500 years, coming from a time when smoke was thought to ward off the plague. Animal rights groups say the practice is cruel and barbaric, but the city government claims that no horse has ever suffered injury.
Reblogged from National Geographic
On the dry plateau outside of San Pedro de Atacama in the Chilean Andes, a horse tamer and his mount splash in a stream. “In the distance I could see a horse tamer, who took advantage of the sunset to feed and (water) his horses,” writes Chelo Montero, who captured this image. While watching horse and rider play in the water at dusk, Montero took note of the strong relationship between man and beast.
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Two stallions fight at a wild horse conservation center in South Dakota. It’s an equine echo of an ongoing struggle across the western United States, where mustangs compete for space with ranching and energy development.
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Not many people get to enjoy horseback riding. I wanted to give the viewer a lifestyle POV photo that makes them feel like they could be there rather than pose the riders as happy smiling subjects. Having them face the sunset while casting gold rims around their silhouettes just seemed so much more authentic.
Reblogged from fstoppers.com
Horseback riders move around the Kicking Horse Reservoir during sunrise in northwestern Montana. From “Montana Road Trip”
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A man trains a horse at his mother’s ranch in Utah. Photographer Brice Portolano was trying to “get the horse’s shadow in its own dust cloud.”
Portolano visited the man, Ben, and his wife, Katherine, several times to learn about their self-sustaining lifestyle in urban Salt Lake City. “They have organized their house and backyard in order to produce most of their own food,” Portolano explains. “Each fall, Ben leaves Salt Lake City and drives into the mountains of northeastern Utah to hunt elk and game birds. With a horse in tow, he hikes up the 10,000-foot-high mountains where he can spend up to a week tracking elk.”
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In the blink of this horse’s eye, the blue sky becomes a counterpoint to its stare. Early horses arose in North America some five million years ago, only to die out and be introduced, in domesticated form, by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1519.
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Summer, the short, sweet release from the interminable cocoon of Russian winter, is a time for swimming and riding, and sometimes both in the cottage community of Vyalki.
Reblogged from National Geographic
