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A far cry from his early career as a forensic photographer, Austin-based Jeff Wilson now specializes in advertising and editorial photography for clients such as Disney, Men’s Health, and Budweiser. Jeff has also enjoyed a nearly twenty-year partnership with Texas Monthly, perhaps the most acclaimed regional magazine in the country.
Texas has always been a distinctive place with distinctive people, and Texas Monthly has long been the arbiter of that unique culture. In his most recent project for the publication, Jeff was asked to capture ten of the state’s largest and weirdest roadside attractions. The resulting series of bold images showed his keen eye for detail and flair for the dramatic.
I really appreciate the subjects that show the breadth and depth of what Texas has to offer and give an idea of how diverse the culture and landscape is. It’s also fun to have a group of subjects that don’t already have a lot of existing representation because I feel more free to interpret them in whatever way it comes to mind.
Jeff researched all of the locations before he pitched the piece to Texas Monthly. He was looking for subjects that felt like an “oddball travelogue for a Texas road-less-traveled trip.” While a couple of his original locations ended up being dropped and a couple added by the editors, the core sentiment remains intact.
Researching the subjects and putting them together had already been done and formed the heart of the piece, so all that was left was getting out there and getting them to sing on the page, whether that’s with composition, lighting, or something unexpected.
It takes a special skill set to plan out the logistics for a shoot like this. Projects of this magnitude are especially difficult because the subjects are spread out across the state, literally a couple thousand miles apart, and all need to be shot on schedule and on budget. All of them were so far apart and required so much travel that there was no time for dillydallying.
With subjects like these you’re typically at the mercy of the sun, so it takes careful planning of time and day to get the best light across all 10 locations and fit all of that, including travel time, into the rest of the schedule. The logistics of something like this can be a real challenge and absolutely make or break the piece. There’s nothing worse than getting in the car at 2 AM and driving five hours to arrive at a location at dawn only to realize it needed to be shot at dusk, and that’s not always apparent on google maps, sun tracking apps, or on a weather report.
Jeff was alone through most of this project. At both the Snake Farm Zoo and at Shangrillama, his assistant joined him because the lighting required two sets of hands. Texas Monthly’s photo editor Claire Hogan was with him for the second day of the cover shoot. Other than that, the journey across his home state was a solitary, contemplative experience, a condition that Jeff enjoys most and often produces his best work in.
This kind of subject matter often has the dual need of being both informational and aspirational. It doesn’t matter how great the photo is, people have to be able to understand what they are looking at. Sometimes those things are in conflict and that’s not apparent until you’re standing in front of it. Add in the challenges with the time of day and weather issues and it can sometimes be a bit of a head scratcher. Sometimes the subjects I think would be the least interesting end up being the easy ones, and the ones I think are slam-dunks turn out to be the hardest to work with.
While some may assume Texas Monthly is a tourism magazine, it has a history of and reputation for serious long form journalism and great photography — chronicling life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education. The magazine also covers leisure topics like music, art, dining, and travel.
There are lots of things they do to celebrate this place that we’re from. Sometimes its a service piece about where to find the best barbecue and tacos or where to spend your time outdoors, which they do better than anyone, but they have also never been afraid to go with some unusual ideas that you would never see anywhere else. The assignments they have sent my way over the years have always been the ones I was most excited to work on and the most proud of, and I have a ton of gratitude for the TM art department. They’re the best.
See more of Jeff’s work on his website.
Credits
Photo Editor: Claire Hogan
Assistant Photo Editor: Kayla Miracle
Creative Director: Emily Kimbro
Design Director: Victoria Millner