When you think wildlife photography, you usually don’t think horses, but today this was exactly what I had on my mind. Wild horses, also known as wild Mustangs. As a kid, film camera in hand, I set out to photograph some wildlife. I didn’t find much that first day, but I did find a horse. A friendly, domesticated, brownish/red horse named Pete. I took a picture, my very first “wildlife” image.

Decades later, I set out once again with my camera in hand. This time I really was going to photograph some wildlife, but I was also going to pay tribute to that younger me and photograph some horses as well. Wild Mustangs!

After trekking through the desert for a couple of days, I’d grown used to the heat and the dust. I was beginning to think that would be all I found out here. In fact, looking out towards the horizon, that's about all I could see, heat waves and dust, lots of dust. Was that a dust devil, or a dust storm? It seemed to be everywhere up ahead. And then I saw them, like phantom shapes disappearing in the mist, the outline of running Mustangs disappeared and reappeared just as quickly in the thick dust kicked up by the dozens of hooves. The best part was, they were coming closer!

And so, I picked a good spot on the barren desert floor and I let them come to me. By the time they reached me, the sun had begun to set and the beautiful, warm light illuminated the dust that hung all around in the air. My day of wildlife photography had turned out to be wonderful indeed. Wild Mustangs surrounded by golden light and dust, who could ask for a better wildlife encounter?