Robert Vavra (born March 9, 1935 in Glendale, California) [1] is an American photographer and author based in El Cajon, California, California and in Spain in the summer.
Robert Vavra (born March 9, 1935 in Glendale, California) [1] is an American photographer and author based in El Cajon, California, California and in Spain in the summer.
Inspired by bulls and bullfighting in Mexico, Vavra moved to Spain in 1958 with a one-way ticket to Madrid on an old Italian ship The Valcania. With no formal training in animals, he spent six years studying the beasts. “I couldn’t obtain the sort of photographs I wanted for the study, so I became a photographer out of necessity,” Vavra was quoted as saying. [2] “I’ve never been interested in the camera ... I don’t really consider myself a photographer. I’m an artist and a storyteller.”
He became immersed in the lore and life of this beast which culminated in the publishing of his book, Bulls of Iberia, in 1972. He was a personal friend of legendary matador de toros Juan Belmonte, riding with him on horseback to check his herds of black bulls, and he shared the dreams, fears, adventures and valor of other toreros, such as the American John Fulton. [3] [4]
In 1988, Vavra established a camp in Ololasurai, Kenya and began what would become a six-year stay with the tribal Maasai people, which led to the publication of A Tent With a View in 1991. [5] He has paid for the education of several Maasai children and financed the building of a school in Mexico, where, since its construction, more than 5000 boys and girls have learned to read and write.
Novelist James Michener once wrote of Vavra: "Though equus has fired the imaginations of painters from Leonardo da Vinci, Velasquez, and Goya to Picasso; still, in the history of photography, no cameraman has recorded the horse with such excitement and personal style as has Robert Vavra. His images are works of art which are a joy to see because they evoke the inner nature of the horse." [6]
Vavra has published a wide range of adult and children's books. He is the author of over 30 books accounting for more than 3,000,000 volumes in print, in eight languages. [ citation needed ] He has had more than 100 one-man gallery displays and museum shows in America and Europe. [ citation needed ]
His work features in and on numerous publications including:
His film work includes Lawrence of Arabia and Patton and he was a creative advisor to Robert Redford during the filming of The Horse Whisperer. Jane Goodall and William Shatner have introduced his documentary film on primitive equine behavior, Such Is The Real Nature of Horses, the culmination of 20 years of research.
One of his best known horse-related projects is Horses Of The Wind, a music CD which includes Robert Vavra's photographs. Though mostly music, the CD includes horses' 'voices', a variety of whinnies and other equine vocalizations.
The horse is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, close to Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, which are horses that never have been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.
Perissodactyla is an order of ungulates. The order includes about 17 living species divided into three families: Equidae, Rhinocerotidae (rhinoceroses), and Tapiridae (tapirs). They typically have reduced the weight-bearing toes to three or one of the five original toes, though tapirs retain four toes on their front feet. The nonweight-bearing toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or positioned posteriorly. By contrast, the even-toed ungulates bear most of their weight equally on four or two of the five toes: their third and fourth toes. Another difference between the two is that odd-toed ungulates digest plant cellulose in their intestines, rather than in one or more stomach chambers as even-toed ungulates, with the exception of Suina, do.
Zebras are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra, plains zebra, and the mountain zebra. Zebras share the genus Equus with horses and asses, the three groups being the only living members of the family Equidae. Zebra stripes come in different patterns, unique to each individual. Several theories have been proposed for the function of these stripes, with most evidence supporting them as a deterrent for biting flies. Zebras inhabit eastern and southern Africa and can be found in a variety of habitats such as savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, shrublands, and mountainous areas.
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead.
The donkey is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, Equus africanus, and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, Equus africanus asinus, or as a separate species, Equus asinus. It was domesticated in Africa some 5000–7000 years ago, and has been used mainly as a working animal since that time.
James Albert Michener was an American writer. He wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations, set in particular geographic locales and incorporating detailed history. Many of his works were bestsellers and were chosen by the Book of the Month Club; he was known for the meticulous research that went into his books.
The term tarpan refers to free-ranging horses of the Eurasian steppe from the 18th to the 20th century. It is generally unknown whether those horses represented genuine wild horses, feral domestic horses or hybrids. The last individual believed to be a tarpan died in captivity in the Russian Empire in 1909.
Marvin Earl "Monty" Roberts MVO is an American horse trainer who promotes his techniques of natural horsemanship through his Join-Up International organization, named after the core concept of his training method. Roberts believes that horses use a non-verbal language, which he terms "Equus," and that humans can use this language to communicate with horses. In order to promulgate his methods, Roberts has authored a number of books including his original best-seller, The Man Who Listens to Horses, and regularly tours with a live demonstration. He runs an Equestrian Academy in Solvang, California and an "online university" to promote his ideas.
Equus is a genus of mammals in the family Equidae, which includes horses, asses, and zebras. Within the Equidae, Equus is the only recognized extant genus, comprising seven living species. Like Equidae more broadly, Equus has numerous extinct species known only from fossils. The genus most likely originated in North America and spread quickly to the Old World. Equines are odd-toed ungulates with slender legs, long heads, relatively long necks, manes, and long tails. All species are herbivorous, and mostly grazers, with simpler digestive systems than ruminants but able to subsist on lower-quality vegetation.
The kiang is the largest of the Asinus subgenus. It is native to the Tibetan Plateau in Ladakh, northern Pakistan, Tajikistan, China and northern Nepal. It inhabits montane grasslands and shrublands. Other common names for this species include Tibetan wild ass, khyang and gorkhar.
Sam Savitt was an equine artist, author, and teacher, as well as an illustrator of over 130 books, in addition to 15 that he wrote. He was designated the official illustrator of the United States Equestrian Team, and was a founding member of the American Academy of Equine Art. He created several horse charts that are considered authoritative works and have been used by the Smithsonian Institution.
Practical Horseman is an American equestrian magazine that focuses on English-style riding, most notably hunter/jumpers as well as dressage and eventing.
Natural horsemanship is a collective term for a variety of horse training techniques which have seen rapid growth in popularity since the 1980s. The techniques vary in their precise tenets but generally share principles of "a kinder and gentler cowboy" to develop a rapport with horses, using methods said to be derived from observation of the natural behavior of free-roaming horses and rejecting abusive training methods.
The wild horse is a species of the genus Equus, which includes as subspecies the modern domesticated horse as well as the endangered Przewalski's horse. The European wild horse, also known as the tarpan, that went extinct in the late 19th or early 20th century has previously been treated as the nominate subspecies of wild horse, Equus ferus ferus, but more recent studies have cast doubt on whether tarpans were truly wild or if they actually were feral horses or hybrids.
Linda Kohanov is an author, speaker, riding instructor, and horse trainer. Kohanov is best known in the field called "equine facilitated psychotherapy", and as the author of five books, The Tao of Equus: A Woman's Journey of Healing and Transformation through the Way of the Horse (2001), Riding between the Worlds: Expanding Our Potential through the Way of the Horse (2003), Way of the Horse: Equine Archetypes for Self Discovery (2007), The Power of the Herd: A Nonpredatory Approach to Social Intelligence, Leadership, and Innovation (2012) and The Five Roles of a Master Herder: A Revolutionary Model for Socially Intelligent Leadership (2016). Linda's books have been used as texts in university courses across the country and have received appreciative reviews in publications as diverse as Horse and Rider, Natural Horse, IONS Noetic Sciences Review, Shift, Spirituality and Health, Animal Wellness, The Equestrian News and Strides. Many courses in equine assisted therapy have her books as essential reading for example in the UK one of the growing number of equine facilitated Psychotherapy organisations IFEAL cites her books throughout their teaching.
Dan M. "Buck" Brannaman is an American horse trainer and a leading clinician with a philosophy of handling horses based on classical concepts from the vaquero tradition; working with the horse's nature, using an understanding of how horses think and communicate to train the horse to accept humans and work confidently and responsively with them.
Daniel Sullivan from Mallow, Co. Cork, Ireland, was an Irish horse trainer who specialised in rehabilitation of horses that were unresponsive to traditional methods. A large portion of his work took place in England.
The evolution of the horse, a mammal of the family Equidae, occurred over a geologic time scale of 50 million years, transforming the small, dog-sized, forest-dwelling Eohippus into the modern horse. Paleozoologists have been able to piece together a more complete outline of the evolutionary lineage of the modern horse than of any other animal. Much of this evolution took place in North America, where horses originated but became extinct about 10,000 years ago, before being reintroduced in the 15th century.
Fleur Fenton Cowles was an American writer, editor and artist best known as the creative force behind the short-lived Flair magazine.
Equus neogeus is an extinct species of equine native to South America during the Pleistocene. It was formerly thought to be several distinct species within the subgenus Amerhippus, but was later shown to be a single morphologically variable species. It is thought to be closely related to true horses.
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