I was visiting Kazakhstan in September 2014. My parents and I went to the Turgen Gorge (Kazakh: Түрген), which is located in the nature reserve 90 km away from Almaty. I was expecting to see waterfalls, I did not know, that there would be a huge herd of horses. I had never seen so many horses in my life before. So I asked my mother to stop the car and let me walk around to take some photographs. My 50mm manual lens does not allow me to shoot from the distance, so I had to come close to the horses. I did not know anything about horses behavior and if it was safe to come that close. I also had to deal with a difficult noon lightening. So my lens, unknowledge of horses behavior and the zenith sun made the photo-shooting challenging, but exciting. And I learned a very important lesson that day.
The horses were walking by, some of them were watching me with interest, some of them did not pay any attention if I was there of not, and those with foals kept away from me.
After some time I saw more horses coming to get over a ditch. When the rest of the herd arrived, it seemed like there were not less than 150 horses.
These two horses remind me of the Yin Yang symbol. The white one and the black one were keeping together all the time, acting like the were no other horses around. They were an interesting couple.
I kept on staying where I was to continue taking photographs. I wanted to see what would the horses do next and where would they go, after they had all come together.
But I realized that the spot I was staying was pretty good for shooting, but I was quite far from my parents' car and it would have taken me a while to get there.
I became afraid because if the horses had come in my direction, I would not have been able to move away. And the horses would have trampled me.
I got really scared, I had no idea what to do, when I was surrounded by hundreds of horses. I was just staying there alone with a camera in my hands hoping that they would not hurt me. I was hoping they would not gallop. I was hoping the horses would understand, that I would do no damage to them, that I was there just to photograph.
I did only a single shot of the horses passing me by. It turned to be underexposed, I was too scared to think of changing my camera settings.
But I learned a very important lesson that day, that I cannot control everything. Sometimes, it would be better to stop trying and let things go. I could not control these horses or what they would do. All I could do was to stay calm and watch these beautiful creatures.
All these horses you see in the photo passed me by. I was a thrilling experience.
I returned back to my parents' car safe and sound. My parents seemed pale though. I do not remember if I ever saw them that scared.
I took a couple of other shots staying in the car.
The horses and us followed the same direction. I was watching them for some more time, while we were slowly driving.
That experience made me deal with some of my fears, it made me stop trying to control things, which wereout of my control. Those horses made me braver, than I was. That was the experince I would cherish.
I added these photographs in the exact same order I had taken them.
Thank you for watching!
