Wild Horses, Equitrekking and USA Today
Salt River Wild Horses Stallions Fighting
It’s amazing how one thing leads to another. This is a fun story about a photo shoot I did last year of the Salt River Wild Horses. In the spring of 2016 I spent a few days down at the Salt River in the Tonto National Forest just outside of Phoenix Arizona photographing the Salt River Wild Horses. It was an amazing experience and resulted in even more amazing photographs.
Darley Newman and Equitrekking
A few short months after the photo shoot of the Salt River Wild Horses, I was contacted by Darley Newman from Equitrekking. Darley had contacted me about writing and sharing a guest blog on her website about my experience photographing the Salt River Wild Horses. I was not familiar with Darley’s television show since I don’t have TV, but I was flattered and eager to see what Equitrekking was all about. After a quick google search, I discovered that Darley was an Emmy winning talent. “Darley Newman is a travel expert, published author and the host, writer and producer of Equitrekking, the Emmy-Award winning PBS TV series, and Travels with Darley on PBS, Create TV and on AOL, MSN Travel, Huffington Post, Amazon and over 2000 partner sites.” Although Darley’s focus is primarily chronicling travel adventures with horses, she also writes about travel adventures with other animals. Darley was interested in the Salt River Wild Horses and had found my website with my newly added wild horse photos.
Sunshine, Wild Horses and My Nikon- the Salt River Wild Horses…
was published May 2016 on the Equitrekking website. The story tells of my wonderful adventure scouting out the Salt River Wild Horses and photographing them.
Salt River Wild Horses
Shortly after the blog was released and after much dispute and political interference, Arizona Governor Ducey signed a bill protecting the Salt River Wild Horses. The proposal was developed after the U.S. Forest Service planned to remove the horses. It reversed its decision following pressure from the public.
White Stallion rolls in the dirt
“The Salt River wild horses are the beloved and majestic horses roaming the lower Salt River in the Tonto National Forest, AZ. They are the pride of the community, a favorite subject of photographers and the icon of the wild, free spirit of the American West. These horses were brought into the limelight when they were slated for roundup and removal in July of 2015.”
Click here to view my Salt River Wild Horse Gallery. 10% of the proceeds from sales from the gallery on my website gets donated back to the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group.
Wild Horses on USA Today
In May 2017, a year after the publishing on Darley’s Equitrekking website I received an email from Darley again. This time she was asking permission for one of my images of the Salt River Wild Horses, called Emergence be used for an interview she was doing on USA Today. Journalist, Larry Bleigberg interviewed Darley about the best places to see Wild Horses.
After the initial interview was published on July 14, 2017 the image above, Emergence, was used again by Bartholomew D. Sullivan in a USA Today article
“Congressional panel permits culling of wild horses”
I soon discovered that once an image is licensed to be used by USA Today it goes into their image banks for any of their writers to use for future articles. So, I hope to see Emergence be used many more times to depict Wild Horses in our country. Politicians, Wild Horse advocates and the Bureau of Land Management continue to battle it out over what to do with all the horses they have rounded up and how it is affecting our open land. Just yesterday in Salt Lake City, a group of State and Federal officials met behind closed doors to discuss the fate of these beautiful animals.
As this battle continues I hope to use my images on the side of the Wild Horse Advocates! They are amazing, beautiful and iconic animals that have lived and died on our lands for hundreds of years.
Click to see more of my images of the Salt River Wild Horses.
Jody Miller is a professional photographer specializing in Horse Photography, Equine Photography, and Equestrian photography. Her work can be viewed online here in her gallery section, and she is also featured at these Arizona Galleries: Arts Prescott Gallery CO-OWNER, Dragonfly Arts in Cottonwood and Coops Coffee House at Talking Rock Ranch, Prescott Family Diner. Jody is also participating in the Prescott Area Artists’ Studio Tour Oct.6, 7 and 8, 2017