when I was young I was 7 years old I
wanted to be a truck driver because it
was the only job I knew you could get
paid to travel and see the country and
so I made my dad stop at truck stops to
get gas when we went on vacation and I
started shooting pictures of trucks when
I was 7 so maybe maybe there was
interesting I’m not sure when I was 19
years old I bought my first ten type at
a flea market and I’d never seen a ten
type before and it was just a beautiful
object with a photograph on it metal
plate and so I’ve collected ten types
since I was 19 I’ve got about 5000 in my
collection now and I guess about eight
years ago with digital photography
becoming an important part of what we do
professionally I was getting depressed
about photography because I really
wasn’t interested in spending time on a
computer so I found a person that knew
how to do the tintype process and I went
and took a tutorial in about three hours
into a three day tutorial I was hooked I
mean it was an experience that was very
tactile it smelled like photography you
your fingers got wet they got dirty and
you know the attractive thing was each
one was a one-of-a-kind image and so you
know that really kind of took it 180
degrees away from digital photography
and so ever since then I’ve been pretty
hooked on it plus I think the the the
relationship you develop when you
photograph somebody on the tintype
process is totally unique because you
have you know it takes an hour sometimes
two hours to to make the final images
and so you’re spending a lot of time
with the subjects and when you’re
shooting digital 35 you’re more
gathering lots of material coming back
and trying to find the frame that works
whereas you know the intimate
relationship you get with a tintype is
you know the the discussions you have
about friends family and everything that
you know you just get a different
connect
those two people which is nice the the
reason I mean I try to focus on projects
I care about with the tintype I mean I
don’t do assignments with it that I
don’t have interest in because it’s too
labor-intensive and and it’s not for me
it’s not a trick in my bag you know it’s
it’s something that I care about and
I’ve just decided that you know the
digital photography is a great tool and
it’s a tool that I’ll use for you know
certain kinds of clients and certain
projects and I don’t mind because I’ve
separated it out and so for me the ten
type is just something that’s strictly
passion driven and if I can make money
off of it that’s fine but as long as I
can get a project that I care about out
of it I mean like this project for
National Geographic I took all the money
that I made in my photo fees and stayed
out for another seven weeks to shoot
pictures on my own
because I wanted to build a body of work
I’ve shot Cowboys for 25 years so in the
end I didn’t make one penny off of doing
the story for the magazine I just dumped
it back into spending more time in the
field doing audio and I also shot 28
hours of video and I’d never done video
before so I just dove in and put the
money back into the project because I
care about the project
I think the reason that Cowboys love
what they do is just the idea that
they’re doing what they want to do I
mean really I mean these people every
day the next day is something they look
forward to it’s not like they regret
getting up and going to work they enjoy
the next day even if it’s going to be I
mean some guys work in 50 below weather
and you know in their 1012 hours on a
horse blowing snow and it’s just the
challenge the the of being out and in
the conditions and being tested and
testing themselves and I think also you
know for them they define happiness by
what they do every day and so there’s
not a lot of people I think in in the
u.s. that define their happiness by what
they do every day for a living and I
think that’s you know I know guys that
have worked three months in a gold mine
driving a big truck in Nevada and a gold
mine they were Cowboys for eighteen
years they went to work because they can
make you know eight eight times the
money driving a truck in a gold mine and
they quit and they go back to making
sixteen hundred dollars a month as
opposed to ten thousand dollars a month
driving a truck because they’re happy
doing that and they’re willing to
sacrifice material things for their
happiness and I think you know that’s
there’s plenty of cultures that have
been destroyed in less than a generation
because they want to acquire a material
wealth that the West has or the West
says is important I mean I think Cowboys
are interesting because they’re one of
the few groups anywhere in the world
that have not succumbed to advertisers
convincing them that more stuff is going
to make them happy for them they’re what
they do eight ten twelve hours a day is
the happiness that fulfills them and so
they’ve you know some of them have tried
the better paying jobs and they come
back because you know life’s too short
to to worry about just acquisition of
material things
well I think the clothes that these
people wear all have a function I mean
if it doesn’t have a function they don’t
they don’t wear it now well let’s let’s
just say that style is important you
know if you’re going to buy a pair of
boots you know and they’ve got to serve
the function of protecting your feet
you’re gonna pick something that fits
you as a person you know your your
personal style so there is some style
but every piece of gear that they’re
wearing has a function the shafts the
hat the Necker chips that they call wild
rags all have a significant part of what
they’re getting the job done and staying
warm and keeping keeping from being cut
so so everything you see that they’re
wearing has a function and as you see
them as how I found them so I never I
didn’t have a stylist with me I didn’t
ask them to tie a record chef a certain
way or tilt a hat or anything it’s just
as they were and you know that’s
basically what they wear every day and
if you get to the buckaroo region which
is again Oregon Idaho Nevada and British
Columbia those people represent the true
Vaccaro roots which is more ornate like
a lot of silver for bridles and flour
stamp saddles and big cap add arrows and
and things like this that we’re all
about you know they they are showy
but the region they work in isn’t as
thorny and as brushy as say guys down in
Texas and Arizona so if you are going to
spend $800 on a certain item or you can
spend $1,600 on it to get something a
little more flower you let’s say if
you’re down in Texas you’d never spend
that extra money to do that because it’s
going to get torn up so you go for more
function and the guys that the stuff
will last a lot longer will invest in
stuff that’s a little more decorative
because that’s the history of the region
but also it still functions just fine
and it lasts a lot longer so you know
it’s not a problem
with the tintype the lot of the Cowboys
saw how difficult it was to make the
images and in many ways that kind of I
guess I got a little bit of added
respect from them because I just wasn’t
flying in there with a couple cameras on
my shoulder shooting pictures and
leaving you know it was like a big
investment of time and and handmade and
so it really is more reminiscent of what
they do
you know kind of a very tactile
experience as opposed to something
that’s not so I think you know they saw
the the sweat and everything that I was
going through just to make pictures and
I think they kind of liked that I was
having to work pretty hard
well I think I mean my family were
farmers not ranchers I mean some work on
ranches and the area I grew up is has
some of the big historic ranches in
Texas but I’ve always been attracted to
the cowboy lifestyle just because it’s
you know we live in a very modern
high-tech rich country and these people
have opportunities to do other things
that they could make a lot more money
driving a truck for UPS than being a
cowboy but they’re driven by their
passion to do with what’s important to
do to them and to live the life that
they want and and probably more
importantly to raise their families and
environments that that they’re they feel
is important and so I just always been
attracted to these people because of the
passion
you
wanted to be a truck driver because it
was the only job I knew you could get
paid to travel and see the country and
so I made my dad stop at truck stops to
get gas when we went on vacation and I
started shooting pictures of trucks when
I was 7 so maybe maybe there was
interesting I’m not sure when I was 19
years old I bought my first ten type at
a flea market and I’d never seen a ten
type before and it was just a beautiful
object with a photograph on it metal
plate and so I’ve collected ten types
since I was 19 I’ve got about 5000 in my
collection now and I guess about eight
years ago with digital photography
becoming an important part of what we do
professionally I was getting depressed
about photography because I really
wasn’t interested in spending time on a
computer so I found a person that knew
how to do the tintype process and I went
and took a tutorial in about three hours
into a three day tutorial I was hooked I
mean it was an experience that was very
tactile it smelled like photography you
your fingers got wet they got dirty and
you know the attractive thing was each
one was a one-of-a-kind image and so you
know that really kind of took it 180
degrees away from digital photography
and so ever since then I’ve been pretty
hooked on it plus I think the the the
relationship you develop when you
photograph somebody on the tintype
process is totally unique because you
have you know it takes an hour sometimes
two hours to to make the final images
and so you’re spending a lot of time
with the subjects and when you’re
shooting digital 35 you’re more
gathering lots of material coming back
and trying to find the frame that works
whereas you know the intimate
relationship you get with a tintype is
you know the the discussions you have
about friends family and everything that
you know you just get a different
connect
those two people which is nice the the
reason I mean I try to focus on projects
I care about with the tintype I mean I
don’t do assignments with it that I
don’t have interest in because it’s too
labor-intensive and and it’s not for me
it’s not a trick in my bag you know it’s
it’s something that I care about and
I’ve just decided that you know the
digital photography is a great tool and
it’s a tool that I’ll use for you know
certain kinds of clients and certain
projects and I don’t mind because I’ve
separated it out and so for me the ten
type is just something that’s strictly
passion driven and if I can make money
off of it that’s fine but as long as I
can get a project that I care about out
of it I mean like this project for
National Geographic I took all the money
that I made in my photo fees and stayed
out for another seven weeks to shoot
pictures on my own
because I wanted to build a body of work
I’ve shot Cowboys for 25 years so in the
end I didn’t make one penny off of doing
the story for the magazine I just dumped
it back into spending more time in the
field doing audio and I also shot 28
hours of video and I’d never done video
before so I just dove in and put the
money back into the project because I
care about the project
I think the reason that Cowboys love
what they do is just the idea that
they’re doing what they want to do I
mean really I mean these people every
day the next day is something they look
forward to it’s not like they regret
getting up and going to work they enjoy
the next day even if it’s going to be I
mean some guys work in 50 below weather
and you know in their 1012 hours on a
horse blowing snow and it’s just the
challenge the the of being out and in
the conditions and being tested and
testing themselves and I think also you
know for them they define happiness by
what they do every day and so there’s
not a lot of people I think in in the
u.s. that define their happiness by what
they do every day for a living and I
think that’s you know I know guys that
have worked three months in a gold mine
driving a big truck in Nevada and a gold
mine they were Cowboys for eighteen
years they went to work because they can
make you know eight eight times the
money driving a truck in a gold mine and
they quit and they go back to making
sixteen hundred dollars a month as
opposed to ten thousand dollars a month
driving a truck because they’re happy
doing that and they’re willing to
sacrifice material things for their
happiness and I think you know that’s
there’s plenty of cultures that have
been destroyed in less than a generation
because they want to acquire a material
wealth that the West has or the West
says is important I mean I think Cowboys
are interesting because they’re one of
the few groups anywhere in the world
that have not succumbed to advertisers
convincing them that more stuff is going
to make them happy for them they’re what
they do eight ten twelve hours a day is
the happiness that fulfills them and so
they’ve you know some of them have tried
the better paying jobs and they come
back because you know life’s too short
to to worry about just acquisition of
material things
well I think the clothes that these
people wear all have a function I mean
if it doesn’t have a function they don’t
they don’t wear it now well let’s let’s
just say that style is important you
know if you’re going to buy a pair of
boots you know and they’ve got to serve
the function of protecting your feet
you’re gonna pick something that fits
you as a person you know your your
personal style so there is some style
but every piece of gear that they’re
wearing has a function the shafts the
hat the Necker chips that they call wild
rags all have a significant part of what
they’re getting the job done and staying
warm and keeping keeping from being cut
so so everything you see that they’re
wearing has a function and as you see
them as how I found them so I never I
didn’t have a stylist with me I didn’t
ask them to tie a record chef a certain
way or tilt a hat or anything it’s just
as they were and you know that’s
basically what they wear every day and
if you get to the buckaroo region which
is again Oregon Idaho Nevada and British
Columbia those people represent the true
Vaccaro roots which is more ornate like
a lot of silver for bridles and flour
stamp saddles and big cap add arrows and
and things like this that we’re all
about you know they they are showy
but the region they work in isn’t as
thorny and as brushy as say guys down in
Texas and Arizona so if you are going to
spend $800 on a certain item or you can
spend $1,600 on it to get something a
little more flower you let’s say if
you’re down in Texas you’d never spend
that extra money to do that because it’s
going to get torn up so you go for more
function and the guys that the stuff
will last a lot longer will invest in
stuff that’s a little more decorative
because that’s the history of the region
but also it still functions just fine
and it lasts a lot longer so you know
it’s not a problem
with the tintype the lot of the Cowboys
saw how difficult it was to make the
images and in many ways that kind of I
guess I got a little bit of added
respect from them because I just wasn’t
flying in there with a couple cameras on
my shoulder shooting pictures and
leaving you know it was like a big
investment of time and and handmade and
so it really is more reminiscent of what
they do
you know kind of a very tactile
experience as opposed to something
that’s not so I think you know they saw
the the sweat and everything that I was
going through just to make pictures and
I think they kind of liked that I was
having to work pretty hard
well I think I mean my family were
farmers not ranchers I mean some work on
ranches and the area I grew up is has
some of the big historic ranches in
Texas but I’ve always been attracted to
the cowboy lifestyle just because it’s
you know we live in a very modern
high-tech rich country and these people
have opportunities to do other things
that they could make a lot more money
driving a truck for UPS than being a
cowboy but they’re driven by their
passion to do with what’s important to
do to them and to live the life that
they want and and probably more
importantly to raise their families and
environments that that they’re they feel
is important and so I just always been
attracted to these people because of the
passion
you
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