English 134 Mixed-Genre Portfolio

Over Thanksgiving break, my friend Ty and I drove out to Potrero Ranch in Dos Vientos with our cameras tossed in the backseat and no real plan except to see what the early winter light would give us. The ranch sits between rolling hills that look soft from a distance and sharp up close, the kind of landscape that changes character depending on who you’re standing beside. I didn’t know it then, but the morning would echo the same question I explored in my earlier writing: how does friendship shift the way we see the world? And what happens when we return to a place alone?

The first photo in this collage wasn’t taken by me at all, it was taken by my friend Ty. His image freezes a horse mid-stride, dust rising beneath its hooves as if the ground itself is reacting to its motion. The rope extending out of the frame hints at a human presence, yet the horse’s body fills the image like something entirely unto itself, powerful and uncontained. Ty has a way of capturing animals with a kind of generosity, letting them take up space without interruption. When he showed me the photo on his camera screen, I remember feeling like he had seen something I had missed, even though we were standing in the same place. His angle and timing captured something that became a reminder that perspective is never solitary. We borrow it from the people beside us.

Researchers in cognitive science describe something similar as a form of joint attention: our understanding of a scene changes when we experience it with another person. Studies on shared perception suggest that humans naturally align their focus, emotion, and interpretation with the people around them, especially when they are looking at the same thing (Richardson et al.). I didn’t need the research to know this was true. Ty’s presence that morning sharpened my attention, made the horses seem more expressive, and made the landscape feel alive in a way it hadn’t before.

When I returned to the ranch alone a few days later, the light felt different. The hills seemed quieter. The horses were the same, yet something in me was less open, less attuned. That difference is visible in the first image I took that afternoon: a close-up of a speckled horse looking through a wooden gate, another horse blurred in the background. The focus on the eye creates a sense of inwardness, as if the horse is watching something I cannot see. Without Ty beside me, I found myself watching the horses more slowly, more cautiously, noticing details that required silence to perceive—the texture of fur, the flick of an ear, the breath gathering in the ribs.

Animal behavior researchers note that horses read human emotion with remarkable accuracy; they attune themselves to our tension, relaxation, and focus (Proops et al.). Standing there alone, I wondered if the horse sensed the difference in me too: the quiet peacefullness, inquisitiveness, and slow patient movements to get the shot. In this way, the horse became both subject and mirror.

Later that afternoon, Anna rode out on Pompy, a steady Appaloosa whose coat looks like its skillfully painted with light. Watching them move together across the field was entirely different from watching the horses at rest. Anna’s posture relaxed as Pompy picked up speed, her smile widening in a way that felt as instinctive as breathing. The photos I took of her don’t just show a rider and a horse, they are a picture representation of a relationship. Pompy responds to Anna's hands and body, and she adjusts in return.

In one image, Anna rides straight toward the camera, Pompy’s ears fixed forward, Anna's braids swinging with each stride. In another, she and Pompy are small against the expanse of the hills, moving through the brush like a single shape. The farther they rode, the more I realized how different this moment felt from the morning with Ty. That day had been about shared observation; this one was about witnessing someone else’s connection, stepping back so that someone else’s relationship could fill the frame.

One of my favorite images from the day is the one where Anna and Pompy are partially obscured by tall, dried stalks. Her face is blurred, her outline softened, yet her presence is unmistakable. Something about that photo captures the feeling I’ve struggled to articulate across both this collage and my earlier writing: that we never fully see another person, but we can glimpse the outlines of who they are in the spaces they inhabit and the beings they connect with.

In Grindelwald, it was Fletcher who shifted the way the world felt. At Potrero Ranch, Ty and Anna did the same in their own ways. Friendship reframes our perception not by changing the world itself, but by changing our paradigm (the lens through which we see the world). The horses, too, taught me something. Their movements echoed the fluidity of perspective: always adjusting too their riders, responding to the unexepected, and gracefully negotiating space. Watching Ty photograph them, watching Anna ride, and reflecting how I percieved different things on different days , I realized that perspective is not a fixed point. It’s a shared rhythm we fall into with the people (and animals) around us.

This collage is my attempt to hold those rhythms still long enough to see them clearly.

Photo 1 · Ty’s Perspective

Horse in Motion

Ty’s photograph freezes a horse mid-stride, dust kicking up beneath its hooves while the rope leading out of frame hints at a human presence just beyond what we see. The image captures both power and restraint, showing how another person’s eye can reveal details we might miss even when standing in the same place.

Photo 2 · “Through the Gate”

Through the Gate

This close-up of a speckled horse looking through a wooden gate turns the ranch into an intimate, almost interior space. The horse’s eye becomes the focal point, reflecting curiosity and a kind of quiet awareness that mirrors the introspection of returning to the ranch alone.

Photo 3 · “Anna and Pompy, Approach”

Anna and Pompy, Approach

Anna rides Pompy straight toward the camera, her posture relaxed and her expression open. The movement of her braids and the forward set of Pompy’s ears capture the joy and trust between rider and horse, showing relationship as something dynamic and co-created.

Photo 4 · “Small Against the Hills”

Small Against the Hills

Here, Anna and Pompy appear small against the wide sweep of the hills, their figures partially covered by the landscape. The image emphasizes scale and distance, turning motion into a quiet kind of companionship moving through a much larger world.

Photo 5 · “In the Tall Grass”

In the Tall Grass

In this photograph, Anna and Pompy are partially obscured by tall, dried stalks of grass. Her face is softened and blurred, yet her presence is unmistakable. The image reflects how we often see people indirectly, through the spaces they inhabit and the beings they connect with.

Photo 6 · Movement Through the Field

Movement Through the Field

This wider view of a horse and rider moving through the field links back to the portfolio’s broader visual language of motion, freedom, and open space. It echoes the earlier landscape photo while situating it within the specific relationships and memories of Potrero Ranch.