This summer, Peoria, Illinois-based photographer Seth Lowe spent a week in Northern Wyoming documenting and shooting portraits of cowboys and ranchers. Wyoming is known as “The Cowboy State” for a reason: the region’s stunning scenery is replete with dude ranches, cattle and, you guessed it, cowboys. Seth has always enjoyed working with real subjects and telling authentic stories, so shooting a series about the American West was his dream project:
When you are photographing people who are passionate about the story being told, or the location you are shooting them in, the story becomes a lot more valid. I think the viewer can always tell when this happens, and connects with the images a lot more. Our minds create memories largely focused around particular moments, and emotions, not the broad general details of an experience.
When he’s shooting, Seth likes to think about moments or expressions he remembers from personal experiences, and work towards capturing those. In Wyoming, he thought of himself as a child, dressed in a cowboy costume and filled with wonder about the American West:
Part of this shoot was me just wanting to experience something I had always imagined … [The American West is] larger than life. There is something really powerful about putting yourself in situations or places that are beyond your own control or imagination. Most of the U.S. population lives in urban areas and modernized cities that we have created. It’s powerful to surround yourself with a beautiful space that is beyond human creation.
Seth’s goal was to portray the working class of America through the modern cowboys who are passionate about living and breathing ranch work. To prepare for the trip, he had quite a few conversations with his friend who had grown up in the area, which helped him determine what was achievable. After making travel arrangements and putting together a loose schedule, Seth headed to Wyoming and set out to start making photos.
He knew he would be alone in the tiny town, but he ran into challenges when he found out his point of contact had moved and there was no cell service or Wi-Fi to be found. Seth spent a lot of his time exploring, meeting people and finding the action, which proved to be difficult due to the ranchers workflows being interrupted by torrential flooding the week before.
It really pushed me to talk with a lot of people, clearly explain what I was doing, and also to understand that things might not go as planned, and to be prepared to go a different route if something fell through.
After the trip, Seth put together a magazine comprised of his images, quotations from his subjects and stories from his trip. The ‘zine format worked well for this project, since people tend to keep magazines out on their tables and browse them frequently. He sent the ‘zine out to agencies and editorials across the country, and plans to make some less branded reprints that he can sell.
In the future, Seth plans to make return trips and continue growing through the series. For now, he’s thankful for the challenging weeklong experience.
This project pushed me in so many ways. I was out for over a week, sleeping on an air mattress in an old trailer in a flooded town in Northern Wyoming. Batteries were charged in random rest stops and diners, images were loaded and backed up on my laptop in smokey bars, and the fanciest beer in the area was coors light. I had a jeep that could barely get around because the roads were so bad, and a lot of the images were shot in the rain and mud, with livestock bumping into me … just working in these conditions for a week made me a much stronger photographer than I was going into the project, and I am really proud of that.
Check out more of Seth’s work on his website, sethlowephoto.com.