“How Long,” Music Video By Mickie Winters for Bradley Hathaway

 How Long by Bradley Hathaway ~ Video by Mickie Winters

This music video was made many years ago and one of my first extensive video projects. I was commissioned to fly out to North Dakota where I spent a week photographing and videoing a pack of Wild Nakota Horses. These Nakota Horses are said to be decedents of Sitting Bull’s original war ponies.

Bradley had a vision to feature these horses and document them in a home footage video manner. He and I would hike around for hours and often not coming across any of the horse packs. The packs often ran in groups of 20-75 and in total there were said to be 200 wild Nakota horses on the allotted protected land.

At first the horses would shy from us and then we would hike even more hours on the bluffs to try to locate more in hopes of finding a pack that would not run from us. I had the most success when I was alone so Bradley would drop me off and return to collect me at dinner time. There is truly not much more magical than be accepted by a pack of wild horses. It is scary. They were huge and feral. Some maybe never even had seen a person before. If I had gotten injured it is possible it would have ended poorly for me because the land was so isolated and no one around for hours. I found myself crouching and submitting and eventually blending in. I watched a mother horse and her baby sun bathe till they fell asleep and it was as if I wasn’t even there. That was one of my favorite memories I have ever made.

I can never thank Bradley enough for providing such a rich experience for me and trusting me to execute his vision and make this music video for him. These photos will always be some of my favorite images I have ever made to date.

These three wild Nakota Horses seemed as though they were having a meeting as to rather or not they would accept me. I was honored that they did.