Photographer celebrates mustangs

Carol Statton loves mustangs. While that's not an unusual trait, Carol takes that love of wild horses a step further by documenting them with photographs capturing the individual essence of each animal. She's traveled to the Big Summit Prairie in the Ochoco National Forest several times since last October to photograph the resident herd there.

A selection of those photos are on display at Hop N Bean, and as patrons wait for their pizzas and growler fills, they can peruse the images up close.

Statton uses a Sony A700 DSLR camera. She finds the camera to be intuitive and user-friendly, and doesn't use any enhancement software to improve the images.

"It allows me to focus on what I'm taking the photo of rather than having to think about the camera," she said.

For Statton, photography is what she uses to capture the substance of her subject. The mustangs allowed her to enter their world and she's endeavored to show them living up close and personal in that realm. She headed up to the Ochocos in the fall after hearing about the shooting of six mustangs in the Big Summit herd. She was saddened by that news and didn't understand what would drive a person to commit the crime. Wild horses are protected by the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, and harming them is a federal offense.

She, like many others, knew the local mustang herd existed and she hoped to see them up close.

After searching around for most of a day, she was about to give up and head home when she looked up from the road she and her husband, Randy, were driving on.

Over to the right stood a mature horse and a foal.

Assuming it was a mare and her offspring, Statton began to take photos.

A friend later exhorted her to look more closely at the underside of the horse, and sure enough the "mare" turned out to be a stallion, which Statton named "Marley." Statton surmised that he is a bachelor stallion and that the foal's dam was one of the slain horses.

During that initial and subsequent visits, the stallion allowed Carol to watch and photograph him, as long as she maintained a respectful distance.

She also came upon other members of the herd that displayed the same wary aloofness.

"These horses see people all the time," said Statton.

They aren't fearful, but have a definite flight zone that will cause them to move away if breached. She added that seeing a wild horse on its home turf is nothing like seeing a picture, no matter how skillfully rendered.

However, Statton hopes the display at Hop N Bean will show people that the mustangs really do exist and that they are part of the Ochoco environment.

The photographs are for sale, and a portion of the proceeds benefits Mustangs To The Rescue horse rescue in Sisters.