Are there horse supermodels? Because if there are, I think this guy is one. He acted like it, anyway - proud, beautiful, and confident. When I was in Spain, where I met this stunning Andalusian, we saw a great many incredible horses - horses that danced lightly around the arena, athletic horses that wanted to show off their agile twists and turns, leaping through beams of dusty sunlight. I had thousands of photos after just a little over a week. The horses are moving so fast, in and out of bright sunlight and deep shade, that you don't always know if you got anything "good" until you've had a chance to get them off the camera. Photographing the horses is great fun - and the icing on the cake is getting to look at them and see what you've got. Sometimes I'll come across one and I know right away that it's going to inspire a painting - and that was the case here with Fingido. I wanted to make a high contrast painting with bold color in the highlights that was both dramatic and mysterious.