Description
LOCATION: Greece
STORY: For years, I had been wanting to create images of a swimming horse in the ocean. While talking to a friend who splits the year between the USA and Greece, she said she’ll set it up with a Greek stable owner. I didn’t think much of that conversation until a few months later when I got a call from her telling me that she made a new friend who has a 24-horse stable, and their horses love to swim. With great excitement, I showed up in Athens a few weeks later, and we hopped on a car ferry to a southern isle.
The stable owner grew up working with these horses, and now that he’s taken over, he offers horseback riding tours up in the hills. Then once or twice per week, or whenever he needs to exercise them in the low season, he walks them all down to the coast. The horses stay in perfect formation, head-to-tail, but you can see their energy build as they approach the sea. Eagar to bolt, they restrain themselves until the stable owner gives the whistle, a hand signal, and bellows out a loud, “ZALI!” (Greek for swim). Then all hell breaks loose as they race into the shallow ocean to swim and frolic with each other. Each horse has their own individual personality, so while some horses swim for just a minute or two and then lazily lay on the rocky beach, others want to stay in the water for hours, and eventually, the stable owner has to round them up to head home.
There are three images of swimming horses in the collections. In Leap, the horse is energetically posturing to a nearby friend as they play and splash around each other. In stark contrast, Salty Kisses shows two horses gently nuzzling each other in a sweet & calm moment. The Long Face is an up-close moment where a curious, friendly horse kept coming up to mouth my lens.
For printing, all three horse images are best kept in or near their original 3:2 ratios (horizontal for Leap and Salty Kisses, and vertical for The Long Face). The horizontal images are available in huge art sizes up to 250″ wide, while The Long Face is available up to 150″ tall. You can purchase this luxury wall art online in our standard sizes, but if you’d like to discuss a custom crop or size, please contact one of our design consultants at the art gallery.