On a late afternoon drive on the windy roads and rolling landscapes of Ireland, I spied this beautiful pastoral scene out of the corner of my eye. Swinging the car around on that narrow road while driving a manual wasn't particularly easy, but after two days of grey skies and gloomy weather, I was ready for a break in the sun.
Sometimes chance encounters offer great rewards.
Cork
Ireland
Horses of Kyrgyzstan
High in the Tienshan lies several beautiful grassy meadows that serve as the summer pastures for the majestic Kyrgyz horses. Life in this terrain yields one of the most hardiest breed of horses, walking on treacherous terrain with an unparalleled ease. But the one thing they lack in this high terrain is salt.
While in Arslanbob, I hitched a ride with a local herder who maintained his stock in the high alpine meadows. Crammed into SUV with 8 other folks wasn't a pleasant experience, but I was grateful for his hospitality as it saved a precious few hours of hiking. Upon reaching his pastures, the herder opened up bags of salt and spread it around. And all it took was a whistle to attract a few dozen horses galloping in from all over the valley to eat salt. To see the majestic equine beasts thundering about the thin mountain air was like nothing else.
Arslanbob
Jalal-abad Region, Kyrgyzstan
Hayfield in Twilight
It was 9pm in eastern Montana. Miles and miles of nothingness stretched all around me. And piercing through it towards the western horizon was the long silvery snake of pavement. Interspersed between undulating hayfields and cattle ranches were tiny farmsteads and rolling hills, gradually leading to the snow-capped massif of the Rockies, the spine of the country.
I had a couple of hours of driving left, but the sun was already taking its last glance at the landscape all around me. But as the road rose above a small hill, the scene opened up, and I finally reached a vantage point that captured the essense of the pastoral scene so characteristic of eastern Montana. A tight crop with a telephoto lens captured the rolling landscape with bales of hay randomly scattered on the fields. At ISO 3200 and 1/80mm at F9, it was a noisy shot, but it did allow me to capture the colors well.
Great Falls
MT USA