COLLECTIONS
THE WORKING WEST
Abandoned places. Fading America. Before it's gone.
THE WORKING WEST
Family Business
These grain elevators have been the center of someone's livelihood for as long as anyone in this part of the plains can remember. The sky put on a show that evening that had nothing to do with me — I just pointed the camera at what was already there. The West rewards people who show up and pay attention.
THE WORKING WEST
Her West
She rides like the land belongs to her — because out here, in this moment, it does. The sun dropped directly behind her string of horses and turned everything into silhouette and fire. I've photographed a lot of cowboys over the years. This was different. This was someone completely at home in a landscape most people only ever see in paintings.
THE WORKING WEST
Pinto Blues
A small band of pintos grazing in a Colorado meadow under a sky that couldn't decide between summer and fall — clouds building, cottonwoods turning, the horses completely unconcerned with any of it. The Working West isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it's just this — animals on good grass under a big sky, doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
THE WORKING WEST
The Gather
Once a year the cowboys bring the horses in from summer pasture and the whole operation moves at full speed — dust rising, hooves pounding, the sun burning low and orange through the haze. I was shooting from the edge of the herd with horses coming directly at me. There was nowhere to go and no reason to move. This is the image I came for.
THE WORKING WEST
Black Sheep
A thousand sheep moving through an autumn valley in Colorado's high country, the aspen turned gold behind them, a lone barn keeping watch at the tree line. This is ranching as it's been practiced in the West for generations — unhurried, deliberate, and completely indifferent to the modern world. I pulled over and watched for an hour before I picked up the camera.