Lazy K Horsemanship Lazy K Horsemanship
Photographs

The Gallery

Kat, the horses she works with, and the country they do it in — a spring day at the barn, a grey afternoon feeding hay, and a long low tide at Somers with room to let a horse move out.

At the barn

Where most of it happens. Catching, hand-grazing, the first ask of the day — and a good deal of standing about doing nothing in particular, which is half the work.

Kat in the barn doorway in a plaid shirt and cap, smiling past the dark horse standing in front of her Kat laughing as a chestnut horse pulls a face over her shoulder, teeth bared to the sky Kat standing in dry spring grass while a loose chestnut horse walks up and reaches its nose toward her Kat with one hand on a horse's face and three more horses crowded in around her Kat standing between a paint and a buckskin in the corral, a hand on each Kat with her blue heeler gathered up in both arms, the dog looking straight at the camera A flat hand held out low to a chestnut horse on a loose lead rope, the horse deciding A hand laid flat along a bay horse's neck, the horse's head low and still Both arms wrapped around a bay horse's head in the middle of the herd

The horses

Every one of them a different animal with a different opinion. Some of these came to the camera; the rest were simply getting on with their day.

A speckled horse with a wide white blaze down its face, both ears forward A chestnut horse's face filling the frame, one dark eye on the camera Two horses standing nose to nose, muzzles touching A grey horse pushing its muzzle right up into the lens, whiskers and all A dark bay horse looking straight down the lens with the rest of the herd behind it A chestnut horse wearing a Lazy K cap balanced between its ears, entirely unbothered An old white horse in flat overcast light, head turned three-quarters to the camera A dapple grey with a black mane resting its chin on a wooden rail A dapple grey with both ears up, watching something out of frame Two grey horses at the rail, one laying its head over the other's neck A grey horse with a mouthful of hay hanging from its lips, in black and white

Out on the flats

Somers, at the top end of Flathead Lake, when the water is low and the beach runs for a mile. Room to let a horse move out and nothing much to get in the way of it.

Kat leaning right down in the saddle with both arms around her horse's neck Kat laughing as she rides a chestnut in across the wet sand, the lake behind her Kat's mother riding her buckskin up the beach with snow still on the mountains behind her Three riders and a dog heading away down the beach, seen from behind Riders strung out along the far horizon, most of the frame taken up by wet sand and sky A single rider trotting across the flats with the lake and the mountains beyond A red roan trotting through standing water with its reflection running under it A rider crossing shallow water with a dog alongside, snow still on the peaks A rider on a grey horse coming up the sand with the mountains behind, in black and white A horse cantering along the flats under a sky about to open Rain falling in a grey wall across the far shore while a rider works a horse below it, in black and white

Chores, and the dogs

The unglamorous half, which is most of it: hay out in the trees on a grey afternoon, and two heelers who consider themselves essential to the operation.

Three horses working through a spread of hay among the pines A palomino, a paint and a spotted horse grazing hay together in the trees A heeler sitting square in the middle of the drive, waiting, in black and white A heeler sitting between a horse's front legs, entirely unbothered A blue heeler close up with one ear cocked, mouth open in a grin

Photographs by Ema Hermosillo. 36 in all. Nothing here is stock: every one of them was taken at the barn, on the lake shore, or in the trees at feeding time.

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