Photographer Kevin Horan stumbled across his most inscrutable subjects — goats — when he moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2007, after working as a photojournalist for more than 30 years. The former Chicagoan befriended the four-legged residents of his neighbor’s farm and became fascinated with their human-like qualities. He soon began taking their pictures in a traditional portrait format. The idea was to take common barnyard creatures and lend them an aristocratic dignity.

Since that first encounter on Whidbey Island, Horan has continued taking portraits of animals. The process “looks at animals as people, people as animals, and the planet as a very small place,” he says. “Treated as portrait subjects, they seem to have personalities.” A former contributor to The New York Times Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Smithsonian, and other publications, Horan has documented the rich variety of human lives and faces.