White Horses at the BeachSunday Sept 29th Beaches are one of the great locations for photographing horses, especially ones who are a little bit wild. There's something about a running horse, unrestrained by fences or boundaries, that just says "Freedom!". So I've been looking forward to this session for a long time. I hope you will agree that it was successful. But honesty requires me to give most of the credit to Cecile and the weather gods, in that order. I'm sure I could have gotten something out of this session without her. But gorging myself as I did would not have happened without her as a guide. First we worked on getting reflections with the gorgeous sky.
Then, of course, we had to do the "running through the surf" shots.
What can I say? With these conditions how could I miss?
White Horses: Stallions
Sunday Sept 29th The day started with a session photographing a couple of young stallions. They were put on a strip of land between two pools of water so they just ran back and forth. The light was gorgeous.
I know from my experience photographing the wild horses in Missouri that any time you get a couple of young stallions together they will immediately start horsing around. Hee hee. Pretty good, eh? So these two lived up to expectations. They had fun and so did we.
We then drove over to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer where they were having their bull festival. Each town has its own traditions involving bulls and horses. This day started with a fairly grand parade of mostly the locals in their finery, riding or driving white horses.
When the parade was over we got a demonstration of agility by some of the younger riders. It looked a lot like barrel racing only with highway cones.
Then Cecile rounded us up and we walked to the edge of town to see the gardians bring in the bulls. The tradition in this town is for a phalanx of riders with the bulls inside ride through the streets. The picture below shows them heading into town.
About 30 minutes later they all came back. The picture below shows the bulls in the phalanx.
Back to Patrick's for lunch. White Horses Mares & FoalsSaturday Sept 28th
After lunch we were back out with Cecile for another photo session. The way the rest of these would work is that we would meet the gardians in the marshes and they would round up or bring with them the horses for the session. This afternoon it was mares and foals. We were constantly trying to position ourselves to get the light and backgrounds we wanted. The horses were sometimes very cooperative, sometimes not. We did manage to get something.
Here they come. Ready to go to work.
We were hoping to get them in the water but the mares were reluctant to take the foals in until they had checked it out. Then they seemed to like it.
Then back to Patrick's for dinner. Patrick is the proprietor of La Table à Rallonge Inn, just a very short walk from our B&B in St. Laurent. Cecile had indicated her hope that we would take our meals there, Jeanne Marie included, with the rest of the group. But we were left with some unanswered questions beginning with his name. Unusual name for a Frenchman, nest pas? Is this some Irish expat who prefers the weather in the south of France? If so we did not come to France to eat Irish cooking. The Irish are trying but they have not caught up with the French in cuisine. And we were hesitant to commit to having all of our meals at a place we'd never tried. Well, our concerns were completely unfounded. Patrick is French and provides the best example of French country cooking one is likely to find anywhere. It was sooooo good! Just another delightful serendipity for this trip.
Early to bed. More shooting in the morning.
Black Bulls and White Horses-AgainSaturday Sept 28 We started before sunrise at the Tour Carbonniere, a 13th Century guard tower that sits right in the marshes. It was built to protect the approaches to the town of Aigues-Mortes, which we will be visiting later in the trip. We were there for the first of six photo sessions with Cecile. This one would be a bull roundup, a real event that is done every fall to move the bulls to their winter grazing areas. The photographers rode along on a wagon that gave us good long range views and kept us out of reach of the bulls. We were at times shooting into the sun but for the most part the light was gorgeous.
The white horses are a very ancient breed, going into prehistory, and may be one of the first populations of horses to be domesticated. This means they have been selected through the centuries for intelligence and agility. You may see them described as "wild" but that is a stretch. They do live year round in the marches, many of them unshod and never ridden. But they all belong to somebody.
For the picture above I'm not as close as it looks. Thank God for telephoto lenses! After the roundup we were treated to a little demonstration of cutting a single bull from the herd. This is where horses' agility really shows.
Back to the CamargueBonjour again from the Camargue, in southern France. We had a lovely and illuminating visit last year and there were so many surprising and interesting things going on we thought we should do it again. Getting there is a trek. Three plane rides and a 90 minute drive but it all went very smoothly. We arrived in the village of St. Laurent d'Aigouze about 7 PM on Sept 26th. We were, of course, exhausted, but our hosts were so welcoming and gracious we had to have a drink with them. We would be experiencing French country living, and cooking, for the next four days.
Friday Sept 27th We had scheduled a cushion day before the photo sessions with Cecile, to recover from the jet lag and possibly to pursue the other major photo subject in the Camargue, flamingos! In the spring and summer there are up to 50,000 flamingos nesting in the marshes. Most of them migrate to Africa for the winter but about 5,000 stay all year. Friday morning we both managed to sleep in and got the worst of the jet lag behind us. So after lunch we set out to the Camargue Ornithological Park. The entire Camargue is a haven for wild birds but this part of it has prepared walking paths and the birds are a little more indifferent to people.
I managed to get a few of them in flight.
We would see flamingos all over the Camargue throughout the trip. I'd hoped to get a sunset shot of them but we ran out of steam. Still a little jet lagged.
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