Spring in Texas is wildflower season. For the months of March and April the fields and roadsides are covered in bluebonnets, indian paintbrush, primroses and a myriad of other colourful flowers. The area around Brenham in Washington County is a particularly pastoral and verdant part of this spectacle and as it is about two hours from my home, I decided to take a day off work and try to capture some of the display. At the weekend the roads are packed with tourists and photographers on workshops out to capture, record and document every inch of the county, but during the week I had the fields to myself.

I drove to Brenham under the threatening storm clouds of a typical spring day in Texas. As I left Austin and headed East the skies started to clear and the sun came out, turning in to a beautiful Spring day with fluffy white clouds breaking up the bright, blue sky. I spent a great couple of hours exploring the back roads around Brenham and taking a load of shots of wildflowers, old gas stations, rusting Ford trucks and other staple country scenes in this part of the world. The county store provided lunch, cheap white bread, plastic, square American cheese and pre-packed ham. With enough mayonnaise, nothing in the world can quite beat the taste of a sandwich like that!

After lunch I headed back out, down farm road 2621 past Miracle Farm. I’d find out later that the farm helps out teenage boys from the local area that have been in trouble. The project assigns each boy a horse that they look after and learn responsibility for during their stay. Sounds like a great way to try and turn a life around. Just passed the farm, a field opened up to my left, full of long grass and wildflowers and without any fencing. In the middle of the field, a man in a white T-shirt was walking a piebald horse.

I’m a reasonably shy person with strangers. I actually really enjoy photographing people but I have a hard time approaching them and asking if I can take their picture. So I end up missing a lot of opportunities and tend to take pictures of subjects that can’t answer back. As I drove past this scene I thought just how perfect it would be for a photo, with the horse and flowers. Ruefully I kept on driving, and found an old, derelict house in a field with some great foreground wildflowers that I happily spent 15 minutes working, while the storm clouds from Austin gathered on the horizon giving some really dramatic light.

Just as I was finishing shooting this area, an SUV pulled up behind my car on the side of the road. I thought I was going to get a telling off from some land owner, so when the window rolled down and the driver called me over, I approached with some trepidation. The driver was a middle aged woman who said that she’d seen me around the area and I looked like I knew what I was doing with a camera (lots of gear always at least gives the impression of talent!). Then she asked that if she gave me $20 would I mind taking some pictures of her husband and his horse. He was walking the horse in a field just back up the road and it was really picturesque! I smiled and said I’d be happy to do it for free, got in my car and sped off back up the road, hoping to beat the advancing storm.

As I got back to the field and got out of my car and approached Jimmy (his wife Veronica had filled me in on his name). I wondered how he’d react to this stranger approaching him with my even stranger request. I explained what his wife had gotten him in to and we chatted a bit about the horse. He treated the whole thing with good humor and I spent about 10 minutes walking through the long grass with him shooting him and his horse. That horse sure loved the grass! Almost every frame I took the horse is either face down eating the grass or looking at me with grass hanging out of the edges of her mouth! After I’d imposed enough on his time, we exchanged addresses, shook hands and I headed off home. Just as I left, the heavens opened and the storm began in earnest. The downpour didn’t stop until I made it back to Austin.

I’m going to send Jimmy and Veronica some prints of their horse and I ended up with having a great day out in the countryside and some fantastic photo opportunities. Next time I might even pluck up the courage to stop, ask to take some shots and offer the prints in the first place, rather than relying on serendipity to save me from my shyness.

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