There is something in the sight of wild horses running together that reaches past the merely beautiful into something more fundamental — the sight of freedom as a physical fact, of animals moving across open ground at their own pace and in their own direction with no agenda but their own and no authority above them but the weather and the grass and each other. Three Abreast captures that freedom in a composition of exceptional graphic strength and atmospheric depth: three Wyoming wild mustangs running side by side across the open range in perfect formation, their bodies overlapping, their strides synchronized with the unconscious precision of horses that have moved together long enough to know each other's rhythms without thinking about them. The black and white palette is the only possible choice for an image of this tonal and compositional complexity — the three horses rendered in the rich, varied greys of their individual coats, their manes lifting in the wind of their own making, the prairie grass beneath them soft and textured, the distinctive Wyoming badlands buttes visible in the distance giving the image its specific sense of place and geological scale. Above them the sky is generous and dramatic — great cumulus clouds building with the particular energy of a Wyoming afternoon, their forms echoing the horizontal sweep of the running horses below in a compositional relationship that feels entirely natural and entirely deliberate simultaneously. The three horses are distinct individuals within their shared formation — different in color and marking and the particular way each one carries its head — and yet they move as one, the tight formation speaking to the bond of animals that have chosen each other's company and keep it even at a full run across open ground. A natural companion to Wild Companions — Wyoming Mustangs, Sentinels of the Sage — Wyoming Wild Horses, Wind and Grit — McCullough Peaks Mustang, and Thunder Across the Range — Wyoming Wild Mustangs, Three Abreast stands as the most compositionally precise and graphically powerful of the Wyoming mustang running images — three horses, one formation, the open range, and the particular freedom that belongs only to the wild. Available as a limited edition of 50 worldwide on ChromaLuxe Metal, Lumachrome HD TruLife Acrylic, or DuraPlaq® FloatPlaqs. Photo © copyright by Tamara Gooch.

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