The Story Behind The Shot (More will follow!)

The Night Herdsman, Tersk Russia, 1983

I’ve decided it’s time to begin sharing the stories behind some of the images I’ve created over the past five decades, and every photograph has a story. Sometimes, the story is bigger than the image. This one takes us to Communist Russia, 1983, during the height of the Cold War. I was at the State Arabian Stud Farm in Tersk, photographing the legendary stallion Menes. It was my first time working behind what was then the Iron Curtain. My assignment in Tersk lasted 10 days, leaving me with ample time to explore the sprawling farm grounds after my official photography sessions concluded. By day, the mares and foals stood quietly in their stalls. But as evening settled over Tersk, they were released into the surrounding pastures — rolling fields of deep grass that seemed to stretch toward the horizon. I watched them drift outward, spreading across the land as the light thinned. And then it struck me… There were no fences. No rails. No wire. No visible boundary to separate security from wilderness. Just open ground dissolving into shadow. As darkness deepened, the night riders mounted. Regardless of the weather, they rode with the herd until dawn, silent guardians moving alongside bloodlines that represented decades of national breeding. Wolves and bears were real dangers in that region. At that time, there were also people who saw them as a food source, unaware of the value of the grazing there. The position carried deep respect. The State entrusted this duty only to proven horsemen of unwavering loyalty. These weren't mere farm animals they protected, but living treasures and the future of the Soviet Arabian horse breeding program. I remember watching one rider stopping after drifting through the tall grass as dusk turned to indigo. Horse and man moved as one against the vast Caucasus sky. And at that moment, I understood something. Protection isn’t always built with walls and barbed wire. Sometimes it rides quietly beside what matters most. That realization stayed with me long after I left Russia. It reshaped how I thought about value, responsibility — and even freedom.

The West Point Assignment

I photographed for Dunromin Arabians for many years. Arnold and Audrey Fisher were exceptional people, the kind whose character showed in the loyalty of those around them. Their staff had been with them for decades. One day, Mr. Fisher casually mentioned he had arranged for me to photograph their stallion, Moonstone Bey, at West Point. West Point! I was granted two consecutive mornings, two short windows at dawn, and told I could shoot anywhere I wished. When I first stepped onto The Plain, the Academy’s parade grounds, that vast sea of green was pure temptation. The light was perfect. The composition obvious. It would have been my first choice. But Moonstone would have had to stand on that flawless grass, and that simply wasn’t the right thing to do. OK, find a plan B. A narrow sidewalk would allow for the Thayer Monument, Washington Hall, and the Cadet Chapel in the background. If I kept my angle low, I could hide the sidewalk entirely, and Larry would walk Moonstone down that path. The morning of that session, four groundskeepers responsible for maintaining that perfect lawn stood anxiously nearby with rakes and shovels, watching every step. No one wanted hoof prints in that lawn. They were understandably nervous at first, but once they saw everything was under control, their posture softened. Afterward, they admitted it was a first for them and said they had genuinely enjoyed watching it unfold. Moonstone didn’t need any encouragement to look alive. His ears were pointed sharply forward, his senses fully engaged. The smells, the echoes, the openness, this was unfamiliar territory. Larry had his trust, but instinct was humming just beneath the surface. This was a challenging shot. The real challenge wasn’t control, it was scale. That massive historic building had to be in the frame. Where the image was made was as important as who stood in it. The risk was that Moonstone would disappear against the architecture — a small figure swallowed by stone. Balancing power with proportion was the shot. The next morning at Trophy Point, overlooking the Hudson, he stood alert against the river and distant hills. I’m fairly certain it was the first, and quite possibly the only, time an Arabian stallion stood in that spot. It wasn’t until later that I learned West Point had closed its grounds to commercial photography after being misled by a film company. Commercial photographic access was no longer given lightly. Mr. Fisher, a fiercely patriotic man and a personal friend of General Westmoreland, made the request directly to his friend. Shortly after, permission came down from the Pentagon. Assignments like this shaped my career. I had no idea at the time. I was simply doing the work. Looking back, I understand how rare that opportunity was. Shot on film with a Pentax 645 in the late 1980s, two mornings, no instant review, no margin for error, the image carried more than a stallion against historic stone. It carried the quiet privilege of being allowed to stand there at all.

First Glance

Barbary+++ was one of the major breeding stallions of his era. His trainer, Don DeLongpre, wanted something different from the traditional English pleasure “trot shot” that everyone was doing at the time. I suggested something a bit more dramatic: riding through man-made fog. And it had to be photographed at night. Don’s facility in Santa Ynez, California didn’t have an indoor arena, so we used the hay barn. It was long but narrow, just enough space to make it work. As we set up the lights, I decided the image needed something more striking. I had a red filter in my kit and placed it over the flash on camera left. So it is iimportant to understand this was as it was shot, not added in post production.- Don rode Barbary+++ to the far end of the barn and waited for my signal. When the fog machines started, none of us could see each other. Don and Barbary couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them. But they were such a team that Don assured me Barbary would overcome his hesitation and come through the fog. I called out, “OK, come on.” At first I could only hear them. Hooves moving through the barn floor. Still nothing visible through the wall of fog. Then suddenly Barbar appeared through the fog, wide-eyed as he broke through the haze… and even wider-eyed when he saw me standing directly in front of him. The space was so tight I had to step quickly to my left to avoid getting run over as they passed. This frame was the first exposure as they came through the fog. I took several more, just to be safe, but I knew immediately that first shot had something special. At the time I was shooting a Pentax 645 with Fujicolor 400 film. When I showed Don the photograph as an 8×10, he didn’t like it. The same thing happened with an 11×14, 16X20, maybe. Linna and I owned an art gallery in nearby Los Olivos, so we decided to try something different. We printed the image 30×40, mounted it, and painted the gallery’s rear wall a mottled red to echo the color in the photograph. Then we hung the print floating about three feet in front of the wall so it became the first thing visitors saw when they entered. The next evening we invited Don and his partner, Richard Petty, over for a glass of wine. A soft light illuminated the print while Linna dimmed the rest of the gallery lights. As they walked in, Linna gently tapped the edge of the photograph so it moved slightly back and forth. For a moment it looked as if Barbary+++ was slowly coming toward you through the fog. Don stepped through the door, looked at it, laughed, and said, “OK Scott… now I see it.” Richard quitely said, “I told you so.” I laughed, responding,” You SOB!! You just wanted a big print!!” This shot had a huge impact on my career as it was so different at the time. It was a memorable image of a great horse.

End Of The Day

The Story Behind The Shot : #4 End of the Day: Poland 1993 I’ve always had a fondness for heavy horses. While photographing in Poland, I stayed at a rather eclectic bed-and-breakfast owned by a well-known Polish equestrian artist named Maciej Falkiewicz. In addition to being a talented artist, he was quite a character. He spoke very little English, but during one conversation, I managed to convey that I had seen several large Belgians pulling wagons in fields surrounding the town of Janów, and that I had always been particularly fond of heavy horses. One afternoon, exhausted from photographing horses at the renowned Polish breeding farm, I had collapsed on the bed in my small upstairs room when I suddenly heard Maciej yelling up the stairs: “Scott… Kona, come! We go!” I grabbed my camera and hurried downstairs. Between sign language and broken English, it quickly became clear we were going to see a big horse. We climbed into his car and headed off. We pulled up to a house built several hundred years earlier, arranged around a courtyard in the style common to that era. As I started getting my cameras out of the car, Maciej had already leapt out and headed toward the barn. To reach it, I had to walk past what can only be described as a junkyard dog—barking furiously and lunging at the end of a very old rope. As I eased past, I found myself quietly saying, “Nice doggy… nice doggy,” hoping he was bilingual, and that the rope would hold. Inside the courtyard, it became clear that Maciej knew the owner. Apparently, he had already explained that I wanted to photograph the man’s horse. The horse had been unharnessed from the wagon, and it appeared the owner was preparing to remove the harness. He was a beautiful Belgian, and clearly tired from a long day hauling a heavy wagon full of hay. Earlier in the week I had watched workers in nearby fields cutting and loading that same hay. Standing on the ground beside the wagons, they used pitchforks to toss the freshly cut grass high into the air, building towering loads that were then hauled back to town by horses like this one. The owner seemed pleased by the idea of a photograph. He grabbed the bridle, turned the big horse back toward the courtyard, and stood proudly beside the massive animal that had clearly been the engine of his day’s work. Just as I finished taking a few photographs, he politely raised a hand and said, “Moment.” He walked into the house. A few minutes later, he returned with his wife and young child, and the three of them stood proudly beside their horse. I made several more photographs. Then I gently slipped the worn leather lines from the man’s calloused hands. By the look in the horse’s eyes, it had been a long day. I led him away from the barn, turned him toward the doorway, and let him go. Still in full harness, he walked slowly towards the door. As he reached the wagon, loaded with the results of the day’s work, he reached over and pulled a well-earned mouthful of hay. It was the end of his day. And a perfect end to mine.