"Rhapsody In Blue" by Bodhi Smith

Sep 30, 2022

"rhapsody in blue" is my new impression and blog...

"because he's odd looking and a bit battered by father time and mother nature, some might argue with me...but i see a beauty here, this wild white horse with his blues eyes, redish-blond mane and wonderful pink nose. he is free to be himself, do as he pleases without constraints. rhapsody is his. he can run free like the wild horse he is, it's his nature" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
 
"wild horses...they are freedom. they are independence. they are the ragtag misfits defying incredible odds. they are the lowborn outsiders whose nobility springs from the adversity of living a simple life. in short, they are american. or at least they are what we tell ourselves we are, and what we aspire to be" ― david phillips, wild horse country
 
"find rhapsody within yourself. it is not out there. it is in your innermost flowering. the one you are looking for is you" ― osho, bliss
 
"take a deep breath
and you will see
the truth inside
that's your rhapsody

the truth inside
dancing blissfully
the truth inside
a gift from the almighty

the truth inside
your spirit is heavenly
heed my words dear one
that's your rapsody"
 
"i'm a believer. oh glory, i'm a troubler. wild horses, wild horses. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster"― bishop briggs, wild horses
 
"if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse. if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse. no, no, no!" ― laid back, white horse
 
"under the trees, the river's laughing at you and me. hallelujah! heaven's white rose. the doors you open i just can't close. don't turn around, don't turn around again. don't turn around your gypsy heart...and come on now love, don't you look back...who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna drown in your blue sea? who's gonna taste your saltwater kisses? who's gonna take the place of me? who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna tame the heart of thee?" ― u2, who's gonna ride your wild horses
 
"inside
bliss
elation
ecstasy
exultation
euphoria
intoxication
cloud nine
exhilaration
inside
pleasure
blessedness
rapture
happiness
high 
heaven
paradise
eden
inside" 
 
"until you see rhapsody everywhere, in every face, until then, you are blind" ― kamand kojouri
 
"once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself a rhapsody" ― sri nisargadatta maharaj
 
"i'm a wild horse in my rhapsody in blue, living life in my own paradise deep down behind my blue eyes, with all i need to be happy inside of me" ― bodhi, rhapsody
 
the best song to go with my impression and blog today is a classical composition from almost 100 years ago in 1924 by arguably the best american composer who combined together formal orchestra with jazz in an original fusion of musical genius, george gershwin was truly a wild horse of his time, and such a shame his life was cut down too soon by a brain tumor... "rhapsody in blue" by george gershwin ... lyrics below were written by his older brother ira gershwin a few years after george passed away at the young age of 38 (just click on any of the words in the powder blue links to listen to the tune and watch the video) ...

"endless summer, you changed rhapsody in blue. every time i touch your fluttering hair, i'm a swaying body in love. ah, it's another hot season, and i escape from the scorched asphalt town, have an adventure with someone. ah, we're not the same lovers every year. but this year too, i guess i'll do something part-time with you...rise in temperature, road information, then everywhere is congested. my feelings are just like that, i'm out of breath, and i'm in a pinch again this year. ice cream on your cheeks. naughty nice...today is also fine (good!) your sense, that smile that doesn't lose to sweat is a little nasty chest pain...endless summer, you changed rhapsody in blue. everytime my fluttering hair repels light, the winds flow, blow my emotions. never-ending summer, let's change myself, rhapsody in blue. you are in my dreamy. already, you're by my side, a couple that everyone envies? ah, the history we nurtured was like brothers and sisters, i'm sure it will be pure love. high, the wind that draws you in, it's a dream that smells from your hair. if you spread the smell of summer, the sky will be blue, and you will be worried flavor. the white sandy beach is eternal summer expectations are greatly swollen...that smile that doesn't even lose to sweat is right in my heart. endless summer, you are dear rhapsody in blue. everytime my fluttering hair repels light, winds flow and blow my emotions. rhapsody in blue. you're in my dream. summer, summer. endless summer, you changed, rhapsody in blue. everytime my fluttering hair repels light, winds flow and blow my emotions.  . never-ending summer, let's change myself, rhapsody in blue"― ira gershwin, rhapsody in blue
 
"some people really just do not get it, they do not know how lucky they are...the real rhapsody in life is not about experiencing something exotic...it is about visiting the ordinary 'you' that's inside and the everyday life around you...it's about discovering the happiness in what you have, not in what you want" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
----------------------
 
MEANING
"this wild white horse is me. he's truly my inner reflection seen at 500mm" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
 
"rhapsody" is defined by merriam-webster as:
1. an overly enthusiastic expression of feeling; rapture; ecstasy
2. a musical composition of irregular form having an improvisatory character
 
to me, rhapsody means pure happiness, and realizing exactly where that bliss exists: inside of me...this wild white horse helped me to discover just that fact for myself, and i'm so thankful for him...
 
"find rhapsody within yourself. it is not out there. it is in your innermost flowering. the one you are looking for is you" ― osho, bliss
 
because he's odd looking and a bit battered by father time and mother nature, some might argue with me...but i see a beauty here, this wild white horse with his blues eyes, redish-blond mane and wonderful pink nose. he is free to be himself, do as he pleases without constraints. rhapsody is his. he can run free like the wild horse he is, it's his nature...
 
when i first arrived at the salt river wilderness, i had a listing of places in the area with the best chances of photographing the wild mustangs. beautiful horses that thrived here in their natural environment without the help or hindrance of mankind...but i was having no luck finding them.
 
and just as i was giving up for the morning and was walking up the riverbank to my jeep, i heard a loud whinny echoing up from down by the water where i had just been...
 
he called out to me to come back and photograph him, i have no doubts. he wanted me to be where i was supposed to be, here with him, separated by only the fast moving blue waters of the river. this was his rhapsody in blue, living alongside the glowing waters of the salt river. here is his home, and here i'm his respectful guest. he summoned me to come join him for a spell, and i did with my 500mm lens...
 
i was so captivated by this one white horse. i was fascinated by him as i studied and observed him. as i was looking through my camera, he stood out to me above of all the others. he was my first horse to espy here, but that is not the reason he was the most extraordinary horse to me. he was the first of hundreds of wild mustangs which i took pictures along the salt river over the period of the five days i was there (with my now ex-girlfriend)...
 
at the time, i did not know why i was drawn to this horse, but he kept popping up over and over each day at each different location and at each different hour where i was shooting images...was he following him somehow? or was it just a coincidence that there he'd be again in front of my camera?
 
you know that i don't believe in coincidences. there's a reason for everything, even if we do not have the capacity to see or understand the meaning at the time...
 
looking back, i believe this horse was a message to me, and he delivered that message to me each day...he is a metaphor of me: i too am battered by my years and weathering. i'm white with blue eyes and reddish blonde hair...we seem to notice and become fascinated by things that reflect our own personal views of ourselves...
 
and what's more, being brought up here in the united states, part of our culture idolizes wild horses. we are introduced to their symbolism at a young age with stories and movies of the old wild west...a wild horse is something special here in america, literally a national symbol like the bald eagle. there are only two animals for which the united states congress has ever specifically passed laws to protect from harm. the first was the bald eagle. the second was the wild horse...
 
the wild horse symbolizes freedom, travel, stamina, intuition, fearlessness, and adventure. wild horses love adventure and travel, knowing they have the freedom and ability to choose and change anything in their life at any time...and boy do i ever identify with this...
 
i'm happiest when i am free to be me with no harness to hold me back. i'm the happiest when i'm out in nature away from all the commotion of other people. i'm the happiest when i'm free to travel with no fences or barbed wire to constrain me. i'm happiest when i'm roaming about whenever and wherever i feel, medicating my restless heart with new places. i'm battered, weathered, rugged, and independent. i'm profoundly beautiful in my own way. i'm content to chose my own path and walk that path of my choice. i'm a wild horse in my rhapsody in blue, living life in my own paradise deep down behind my blue eyes, with all i need to be happy inside of me...
 
"rhapsody is not found externally on the outside. it's instead discovered by looking internally within, zooming in 500mm deep inside, and reflecting on who we really are, and what makes us the happiest" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
 
this wild horse is a metaphor of me, and i was meant to take photos of it. i was meant to encounter him over and over. i was meant to reflect on him and what he meant to me, reflect on my own meaning of rhapsody. i was meant to get the message that he was telling me...and i get it now, thank you dearly, beautiful mister blue-eyed wild white wild horse...
 
and now here is another great tune to give a listen...it was originally released in 2015 from beautiful alternative british artist with a beautiful voice...the song's meaning flows around the idea of doubt about being able to be in a relationship and happy. sometimes there's a perception that we leave relationships because it's going bad, filled with fighting all the time where we just cannot get along. but sometimes we just need to find out who we are on our own, or perhaps we have lost our sense of self within that relationship. it's not always about anger. sometimes it's despair. and we need to able to run free like wild horses instead of being held back by a significant other. we need to be able to discover our own rhapsody...and with my impression being of a wild horse, this tune is a great match today for my impression and blog ... "wild horses" by bishop briggs ... (just click on any of the words in the powder blue links to listen to the tune and watch the video) ...

"you hold me down in the best way. no quarter from these chains that i've slept on my heart for a feeling. why can't i let my demons out? keep screaming into the pillow, because your taste still gets me stupid high. oh glory, i'm a believer. oh glory, i'm a troubler. wild horses, wild horses. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster...you call my truth in the worst way, through the dirty lands of a broken smile. and i swear i'm not a pretender. sometimes it's love who's the baby's cry. so, i keep on damning the devil, and you keep on saying it's alright. oh glory, i'm a believer. oh lord, i'm holding tight, but wild horses, wild horses, wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster...so, i keep on damning the devil, and you keep on saying it's alright. oh glory, i'm a believer. oh lord, i'm holding tight, but wild horses, wild horses, wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster. wild horses run faster, run faster, run faster"― bishop briggs, wild horses
 
"my rhapsody is found deep down inside behind my blue eyes, and it's entirely up to me to be able to see that" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
----------------------
 
STORY BEHIND WILD HORSES
"to me, rhapsody means pure happiness, and realizing exactly where that bliss exists: inside of me...this wild white horse helped me to discover just that fact for myself, and i'm so thankful for him" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue

wild horses (also known as mustangs) live in a strange twilight. they are deeply american but not native; they are free-born symbols of liberty but tightly managed, thriving yet persecuted. today, the wild horse is a ward of the state, with tens of thousands held in captivity by the federal government, nearly as many are left in the wild...

in a powerful blend of history and contemporary reporting, pulitzer prize winner and new york times reporter david philipps traces the rich history of wild horses in america: their introduction by the spanish conquistadors, their role in the epic battles between native americans and settlers, their vital place in american self-mythology. he travels through some of the most remote parts of the american west, known as wild horse country, to investigate the wild horse's current dilemma, caught between the clashing ideals of ranchers, scientists, animal rights activists, slaughterhouse employees, and government officials...

the following is a short excerpt from the book WILD HORSE COUNTRY by david philipps. copyright (c) 2017

"Wild horses! Even if you have never seen one, chances are if you grew up in the United States you know what they mean. They are freedom. They are independence. They are the ragtag misfits defying incredible odds. They are the lowborn outsiders whose nobility springs from the adversity of living a simple life. In short, they are American. Or at least they are what we tell ourselves we are, and what we aspire to be. If you think I’m laying it on a little thick, consider this: There are only two animals for which the United States Congress has ever specifically passed laws to protect from harm. The first was the bald eagle. The second was the wild horse.

And yes, unusual as it sounds, the United States still has wild horses. Real wild horses. Not just a few relics carefully curated in a national park, but tens of thousands. They roam free, cared for by no one and controlled by no one, nearly as wild as the deer and the antelope. Even in the twenty-first century, when the wild is steadily disappearing, wild horses are not just surviving, but thriving. They are expanding. What a wonderful and strange thing.

Today wild horses still roam on more than thirty-one million acres in parts of ten western states. But few people will ever see one, because wild horses generally live where we do not—the empty spots on the map, remote scraps of the country too dry or rocky or hot or all-of-the-above to be of much use. They once roamed the whole West from the Great Plains to the Pacific, but they have been driven to the sharp angled remnants of the West where there is still room for things to be wild: Rimrock. Cedar breaks. Salt flats. Shale barrens. Almost any unwanted scrap where open space reigns and order and fences are scarce, you will find them. Badlands. Sage flats. Even nuclear test sites and bombing ranges. These are the parts of America most people only see from plastic airline portholes at thirty thousand feet, where gradually the land shrivels and the grid of roads breaks down until it is just mountains and canyons crossed by a few lonesome strands of highway. Almost all of it is located in the dry bowl of land between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. This collective group of relatively pristine remnants goes by many names. On my repeated visits I began to refer to it simply as Wild Horse Country.

Wild Horse Country is almost all desert. Distance and aridity rule. Little has fundamentally changed in the century since Mary Austin wrote in The Land of Little Rain, “There are hills, rounded, blunt, burned, squeezed up out of chaos, chrome and vermilion painted, aspiring to the snowline. Between the hills lie high level-looking plains full of intolerable sun glare, or narrow valleys drowned in a blue haze.”

The official government names of designated wild horse ranges in Wild Horse Country give some taste of the landscape: Granite, Lava Beds, Slate Range, High Rock, Rocky Hills, Red Rocks, Sand Canyon, Sand Basin, Sand Springs, Black Mountain, Bald Mountain, Dead Mountain. Just reading them makes you thirsty. They are names that map the history of people who came looking for something and found only what a gray-haired curator with dirty bifocals at a one-room roadside Nevada history museum described to me as “nothing but miles and miles of miles and miles.” They are names of want, failure, hideouts, last stands, and wind. Names of places that even the hardy homesteaders we learn about in school sized up and passed over: Stinking Water, Salt Wells, Rattlesnake, Dogskin. Cyclone Rim, Devil’s Garden, Robbers Roost, Hard Trigger. Murderer’s Creek, Deadman Valley, Confusion, Harvey’s Fear.

It’s not the land the horses chose. It is just the land that was left to choose. Hardscrabble islands of desiccated emptiness that herds were pushed into. Put together the patchwork where wild horses are found in the West and you have an area the size of Alabama. And a human population near zero.

Actual road signs I have seen on the way through:

NEXT GAS 167 MILES
DANGER CROSSWINDS 50 MPH +
CAUTION EAGLES ON HWY

That’s Wild Horse Country. And yet, as Austin said of the desert, “Void of life it never is, however dry the air and villainous the soil.”

The legend of the wild horse—all that stuff about freedom and toughness, which secured its place as an American icon? It is well deserved. Like nearly all Americans, the wild horse is an immigrant. And like many, it prospered through sheer grit. The herds on the land now are the descendants of the painted war ponies that allowed a few thousand native warriors to hold off the industrialized American army. They are also the descendants of the cavalry mounts that chased down Crazy Horse and cornered Geronimo. They are the descendants of the Pony Express runners that whisked messages from the Mississippi to San Francisco in ten days before the invention of the telegraph, and the cowboys’ tireless sidekicks in the great cattle drives.

Somewhere back in time, they all descended from domestic horses, many of them of Spanish blood but likely as many or more from American stock. What you see on the range are ones that got away—the refugees, the outcasts, the fugitives. Their toughness is legend. One newspaper account from the early days of the California gold rush told of a mustang found trapped at the bottom of a dry well after twenty-two days—still doing fine. In San Francisco around the same time, a mustang rode five days straight during an endurance exhibition. In 1897, the United States Bureau of Animal Industry sponsored a 2,400-mile race from Sheridan, Wyoming, to Galena, Illinois. Any horse could enter. Two brothers caught wild mustangs, broke and saddled them, and, ninety-one days later—with no horseshoes and no grain—trotted across the finish line. The only survivor of Custer’s Last Stand was a mustang named Comanche. He had been shot seven times, not counting an arrow wound from a previous battle. He lived for years afterward, developing a taste for whiskey in his old age.

“If I had my pick between a $1,000 Arabian steed and a common fuzztail,” the cowboy and author Will James wrote a century ago, “I’d much rather select the one with the snort and the buck, cause I know the trail between suns is never too long for him, no matter how scarce the feed and water may be.”

Mustangs are the subject of hundreds of tales in pulp novels, movies, radio dramas, TV Westerns, and songs sung around the campfire. Goodbye, old paint, I’m a-leavin’ Cheyenne. Sure, much of the history is just legend and myth, which has grown with the telling, but as I eventually learned in Wild Horse Country, legend and myth can have as much weight as fact"
 
....from the book WILD HORSE COUNTRY by david philipps. copyright (c) 2017....
 
seriously, you should always respect wild horses, you should never want to break them and change their nature and free spirit just ride them, especially if they are a wild "white" horse....this next song from almost 40 years ago in 1983 is about making the decision to not ever try heroin (white horse). but if you are rich and must try a drug, instead try cocaine (white pony)... "white horse" by laid back" ... (just click on any of the words in the powder blue links to listen to the musical selection)....

"if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse. if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse. no, no, no! if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse. if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse. if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse. if you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse, white horse. don't ride the white horse...if you wanna be rich, you got to be a bitch. you got to be a bitch. i said, rich, bitch! rich, bitch, rich, you bitch! if you wanna ride, ride the white pony. ride, ride the white pony. white pony, white pony" ― laid back, white horse
 
"this was his rhapsody in blue, living alongside the glowing waters of the salt river. here is his home, and here i'm his respectful guest....and he summoned me to come join him for a spell" ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
----------------------
 
MORE QUOTES FOR EXTRA MEANING
this song from over 30 years ago in 1991 is about trying to make the needed breakaway from someone who you know just is not right for you, but you continue to hedge over the decision and keep asking yourself, "who gonna do that for you, if not me?" ... "who's gonna ride your white horses" by u2 ... (just click on any of the words in the powder blue links to listen to the musical selection)....

"you're dangerous, because you're honest. you're dangerous, you don't know what you want. well you left my heart empty as a vacant lot for any spirit to haunt. you're an accident waiting to happen. you're a piece of glass left there on a beach. well you tell me things i know you're not supposed to, then you leave me just out of reach...who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna drown in your blue sea? who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna fall at the foot of thee?...well you stole it because i needed the cash. and you killed it because i wanted revenge. well you lied to me because i asked you to. baby, can we still be friends? who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna drown in your blue sea? who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna fall at the foot of thee?..ah, the deeper i spin. ah, the hunter will sin for your ivory skin. took a drive in the dirty rain to a place where the wind calls your name. under the trees, the river laughing at you and me. hallelujah! heaven's white rose. the doors you open i just can't close. don't turn around, don't turn around again. don't turn around your gypsy heart. don't turn around, don't turn around again. don't turn around, and don't look back. come on now love, don't you look back...who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna drown in your blue sea? who's gonna taste your saltwater kisses? who's gonna take the place of me? who's gonna ride your wild horses? who's gonna tame the heart of thee?" ― u2, who's gonna ride your wild horses
 
"in my silence and stillness, my soul dances with the rhapsody of life" ― gautama siddhartha buddha, sayings of buddha
 
"after all, what is happiness? love, they tell me. but love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness...real love is composed of rhapsody and agony" ― paulo coelho, the witch of portobello
 
"be a lamp unto yourself, make of yourself a light" were the last words of the buddha...meaning in the end, we will find that our heart holds the simple wisdom and unshakable compassion that we have sought all along" ― jack kornfield after the ecstasy, the laundry
 
"we, unaccustomed to courage-
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

love arrives
and in its train come rhapsodies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

we are weaned from our timidity
in the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
and suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
yet it is only love
which sets us free" 
 
"what we give to others, we give to ourselves. what we withhold from others, we withhold from ourselves. in any moment when we choose fear instead of love, we deny ourselves the experience of rhapsody" ― marianne williamson, illuminata
 
"there is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. and such is the paradox of living, this rhapsody comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive" ― jack london, the call of the wild
 
"rhapsody, 
without connection, 
is without order, 
and without art" 
 
"he puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
and when i'm awake, or awake enough
he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.
tell me you love me, he says.
tell me again.
could there be a sweeter arrangement?a dog's rhapsody in the night
over and over
he gets to ask it.
i get to tell." 
 
"and lovers? why, they are made humble by the imprint on their hearts? for they are merely the instruments of rhapsody" ― kamand kojouri
 
"only the united beat of sex and heart together can create rhapsody" ― anais nin, delta of venus
 
"the truly creative mind is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. to him...a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is a rhapsody, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create...so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. he must create, must pour out creation. by some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating" ― pearl s. buck
 
"amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. rhapsody is knowing exactly who one is, and still not caring" ― tom robbins, another roadside attraction
 
"i am amazed at the randomness, the comedy, and the faith that brings us all together and makes us hold on. i open myself wide to take it all in. the scene plays out like a rhapsody" ― david levithan, boy meets boy
 
"the claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. the art of today is that which really belongs to us: it is our own reflection. in condemning it, we but condemn ourselves. we say that the present age possesses no art...but who is responsible for this? it is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients, we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. struggling artists, weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain! in our self-centered century, what inspiration do we offer them?" ― kakuzo okakura, the book of tea
 
"my love for you is immeasurable
my respect for you immense
you're ageless, timeless, lace and fineness
you're beauty and elegance

you're a rhapsody, a comedy
you're a symphony and a play
you're every love song ever written
but honey what do you see in me?

you're in my heart, you're in my soul
you'll be my breath should I grow old
you are my lover, you're my best friend
you're in my soul" 
 
"is this the real life? is this just fantasy? caught in a landside, no escape from reality. open your eyes, look up to the skies and see...i'm just a poor boy, i need no sympathy, because i'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low...any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me" ― queen, bohemian rhapsody
 
"when you finally arrive at the land of absence, be silent. don’t say a thing. rhapsody, not words, is the language spoken here" ― jalaluddin rumi, poems of ecstasy and longing
----------------------
 
ABOUT THIS IMPRESSION
"looking back, i believe this horse was a message to me, and he delivered that message to me each day...he is a metaphor of me: i too am battered by my years and weathering. i'm white with blue eyes and reddish blonde hair...we seem to notice and become fascinated by things that reflect our own personal views of ourselves..." ― bodhi, rhapsody in blue
 
this impression was captured looking across to the north bank from the south bank of the salt river just east of mesa, arizona on a windless morning a little over an hour after sunrise at 6:46am on july 6th, 2022...
 
this composition is comprised of two separate exposures taken consecutively to achieve the dreamy effects i desired, and stay true to my style of long exposures even with this being a shot of wildlife--a wild white mustang (who was moving as he was feeding on the cool river grass just below the surface of the water)...one shorter exposure of the horse surrounded by the trees (f/11@500mm for 1/50sec, iso-64)...merged with a quasi-long exposure of the calm trees in the background and the swiftly flowing blue waters of the salt river in the foreground (f'/11@500mm for 11 secs, iso-64)... 
 
in my photography, i always use filters to create longer exposure effects, saturate colors naturally, and balance the light in my composition in-camera...i often use as many as four filters at time, and i always use at least one filter in my completed impressions...
 
to get the effects and balance i was looking for in the horse exposure of this composition (f/11@500mm for 1/50 sec, iso-64), i did not use any filters, as none were needed since the morning light was pretty evenly balanced...
 
however in the second exposure, to get the dreamy motion effects of the blue water flowing in the salt river (f/11@500mm for 11 secs, iso-64), i used one progreyusa filter along with the progrey g-120z antarctic magnetic holder to secure the filter to my nikon d850 with a nikon nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens...a 3.0 nd progrey antarctica filter to bring the light in the image down 10 stops and permit for the quasi-long 11 second exposure which smoothed out and blurred the flowing waters as well as naturally saturates all the red, green, and blue (rgb) colors in the image... 
 
and i was lucky with this blend as the wild horse moved very little during the long exposure, making it a much easier merge of the two layers in adobe photoshop cc...plus i was also lucky to have no wind blowing which enabled me to use more of the exposure in the background, plus saturated parts of the horse (nose and eyes) as well as the foreground with the water...
wish to openly thank my sponsors who have always supported me through both the good and bad times...for truly this long exposure impression would not be possible without the use of my induro phq3 series 5-way panhead with an induro (now benro) stealth carbon fiber tripod in combination with the progreyusa filters which i use with every photo i take...
 
"you were blessed with 84,600 seconds today, have you used one of them to say thank you?" ― bodhi, blessed 
 
"i do not want you to just be into my photography, instead, i'd much rather you take a journey into my pictures, and feel the impression i have created, feel it with all your senses" ― bodhi, into my photo
 
"my photography is my way of keeping a diary " ― bodhi, my diary
 
"contemplate without thinking. be certain only in your uncertainty, content to be completely incomplete. stop the rush. slow down time. breathe and notice. slow down everything. let it all be. shut off the noise. hush. relax. seize this higher moment. reconnect. feel and sense what surrounds you. listen to all the colours of light whisper as they envelope you. see the melody and harmony that float about unnoticed. taste the solitude of all this wonderment. smell the beautiful silence. now discover your peaceful serenity. then, reach out and touch your faith with all your senses. this is my world. awaken!" ― bodhi, my world
 
leave you today wishing that bright joy 
and spiritual peace fill your life...
imploring you to make every moment count, 
no matter what, always and forever, 
for that is the only thing that truly matters...    
 
and above all else,
i hope this message and impression find you well.
 
namaste,
bodhi
-------------------------------------------------
 
please visit me at:
 
#rhapsody #blue #Arizona #progreyusa #benro #vixenoptics #dolica #nikon #d850 #lowepro #wild #horses #mustangs #Salt #River #Mesa #inspiration #believe #faith #hope #namaste #impressionist #expressionist #bodhi #buddha