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Cowboys and Photojournalism: True Grit
NYT Lens Blog
Cowboys from the 2008 Northwest Montana Fair. - Lido Vizzutti/Flathead Beacon
Kenneth Jarecke wrote a great essay for the New York Times Lens blog last week, Aug. 25, paralleling photojournalists with cowboys. (Read it here.)
Jarecke is currently based out of Billings, and has an impressive resume of clients. Photographing the Montana Fair sparks his thoughts on the similarities between the photojournalist and the cowboy. Not images of the lone gunman, but the idea that neither is supposed to exist.
What first drew me to photographing cowboys were the hats. Cowboy hats are so easily silhouetted against the Montana sky. They frame the eyes and fit cleverly into simple or complicated backgrounds. But while photographing the hats, I got to know the people wearing them, and in getting to know the people, you get to know a certain kind of work ethic, diligence, quiet reverence and sense of worth.
Being a photojournalist is still a sought-after profession (even as the job market approaches a desert dry). Yet so many farms and ranches are finding it difficult to pass down their livelihood to the next generation. There are exceptions, as in the story we did on the Flathead’s youngest farmer in 2007, but photojournalism breeds the idea of travel and adventure.
“Photojournalists always want to get on a plane … but if you can’t make a great picture in your own backyard, it isn’t going to happen anywhere else,” Jarecke says.
See more of Kenneth Jarecke's Montana Fair series here.
See the Beacon multimedia from the 2008 Northwest Montana Fair, and slide shows of the Summer Rodeo at the Blue Moon, Down and Dirge with Pig Wrestling from this year’s Northwest Montana Fair and O-Mok-See Races at the fairgrounds last weekend.
Jarecke is currently based out of Billings, and has an impressive resume of clients. Photographing the Montana Fair sparks his thoughts on the similarities between the photojournalist and the cowboy. Not images of the lone gunman, but the idea that neither is supposed to exist.
The photojournalism field is too competitive to enjoy success without giving it everything you’ve got. The highest level is filled with people who don’t have a backup plan. If they had, they would have already used it.
So if you’re talking about the survival of photojournalism, that’s the kind of people I’ll bet on: the ones — just like the cowboys all around me in Billings — that show true grit.
What first drew me to photographing cowboys were the hats. Cowboy hats are so easily silhouetted against the Montana sky. They frame the eyes and fit cleverly into simple or complicated backgrounds. But while photographing the hats, I got to know the people wearing them, and in getting to know the people, you get to know a certain kind of work ethic, diligence, quiet reverence and sense of worth.
Being a photojournalist is still a sought-after profession (even as the job market approaches a desert dry). Yet so many farms and ranches are finding it difficult to pass down their livelihood to the next generation. There are exceptions, as in the story we did on the Flathead’s youngest farmer in 2007, but photojournalism breeds the idea of travel and adventure.
“Photojournalists always want to get on a plane … but if you can’t make a great picture in your own backyard, it isn’t going to happen anywhere else,” Jarecke says.
See more of Kenneth Jarecke's Montana Fair series here.
See the Beacon multimedia from the 2008 Northwest Montana Fair, and slide shows of the Summer Rodeo at the Blue Moon, Down and Dirge with Pig Wrestling from this year’s Northwest Montana Fair and O-Mok-See Races at the fairgrounds last weekend.
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