The first morning at the ranch started very early. We had to be at the badlands outside the ranch before the sun rose to get photos of the wranglers as they brought the horses into the corrals.  I was expecting the weather to be much warmer than it was but fortunately, because I pack everything  "just in case", I brought some extra clothes and for once I was actually happy that I had over packed. It was pretty cold at 5:00 a.m. standing out in the badlands of Wyoming waiting for the horses and wranglers to come galloping over the rise of the hill.  

Just at the right moment, as if it was perfectly choreographed, the sun started peeping over the mountains and the first horses were spotted coming towards us. My heart started racing and seemed to fall in rhythm with the horses hooves as they beat the cold packed ground around me. Horses and wranglers were all around me.  It was so exciting and exhilarating! I shot photo after photo after photo until they had all passed and were out of view. The dust of the badlands floating through the air and clinging to my clothes was the only evidence of what just happened. That and my photos.

As I  turned my camera back on to scroll through the pictures I had just taken, I wanted to cry. The photos didn't even give a hint as to what a thrilling, beautiful, perfectly lit scene had just passed by me. The moment was gone forever and I wasn't able to capture it in a way that would prove what I had just experienced.

​We headed back to the ranch to spend the next few hours editing out photos.  I took at least 500 photos that morning. My assignment was to pick 10 of those 500, no cropping and no post processing, and turn them in to Jay and Jeff.  From the 10, they would pick 5 that they thought were the best and we would have a critiquing session later that day.  

That was one of the hardest days of my whole photography "career" to that point.  Little did I know that the whole coming week was going to be just as intense.