The Cowboy Way

The Cowboy is an American Iconic symbol. Few icons in history carry such powerful images of strength, character, romance, and rugged determination. So getting to photograph a cowboy is a true honor and privilege.

Cowboys of course historically tend to conjure images of the wild west, cattle drives, and horses, but cowboys are found today in virtually every state...including Kentucky.  That makes sense because Kentucky certainly has a long history and connection to horses and so the image of the cowboy is a natural fit.

Photographing the cowboy image presents some difficult yet interesting problems to solve like, how do you capture the icon without creating a cliche? Then again, maybe the cliche is exactly what you want to capture, sort of like when writing about a person from history, when fact contradicts legend, you print the legend. One such opportunity presented itself to me recently when I spent a few hours out at the Diamond H Equine Center just north of Bowling Green, Kentucky. There I met Jennifer and Davy Brothers who run the center.

Davy is a true to life working cowboy and the focus of this shoot was to capture that historical image. I also wanted to capture Davy's iconic appearance as a portrait style photograph and to capture the playful interaction between him and Jennifer.

 As most of the photography was captured inside the horse stables, I had to deal with extremes of lighting where in some places the light was almost nonexistent, and in other places there was a bright glaring light filtering in from the outside.

I used two off camera speed lights, one fitted with a 31 inch dome and the other left bare...both fired remotely from the camera. With these two simple lighting setups I was able to throw enough additional light onto my subjects and to provide some background fill light to allow for a natural looking exposure.

Combined with the outside ambient light that filtered into the stables, the effects were natural and effective. I also made some natural light images to help capture that sense of place and atmosphere.

On a rather warm and muggy day, Davy hauled some hay, mended a couple of fences, and worked with the horses presenting photo opportunities in a plain, honest, work-a-day cowboy manner.







It proved to be an interesting photo shoot and my subjects proved to be wonderful examples of a modern day historical iconic symbol.