No, really, he ate one.

Back to that in a minute.

I’ve always had mixed feelings when it comes to hiring photographers overly versed in a subject matter. Certainly, when a photographer knows how to behave, act and dress around a subject it can cause the subject to drop their guard a bit and make for more intimate images. It also usually means they’ll be more accommodating with their time and with what they allow to be photographed so you get better access. The trade off is that photographers sometimes don’t push the pictures beyond comfort level, they won’t ask the subject to do something that might make them uncomfortable or might jeopardize their relationship with the subject.

On the other hand picking a photographer who has some distance from the subject and is not excessively concerned with their feelings or the possibility of making them uncomfortable or how they might be looked upon by the subject can result in some really spectacular work.

Anyway, this is a little more heady than I wanted to get into with this post because really I just saw this narrated slideshow over on the Texas Monthly website and I was imagining Peter Yang in his checkered vans and spiked hair dragging his cow shit covered 7b’s, c-stands and octabanks all over Texas and thought that was interesting. Of course I know Peter as a guy who shoots a lot of Rock and Roll pictures for Rolling Stone so I didn’t realize he’s from Dallas and went to school at UT and worked in Austin for 9 years and to what extremes he’d go to, to get a picture when I fired off a bunch of questions to see what the hell he was doing shooting cowboys in Texas.

Check out the slide show and audio commentary (here)

Was it really a 16 day shoot? I’m amazed magazines still do 16 day shoots. Did you have to sleep in a ditch?

It was sixteen days altogether for a cover and an 18-page portfolio in Texas Monthly. We logged 5,000 miles driving back and forth across Texas. In reality, there were six or seven days of shooting. The other days were spent traveling, scouting and investigating.

Leslie Baldwin and TJ Tucker at TM made initial contact with the ranches, but in the end, cowboys aren’t phone people. Arriving at each ranch felt like starting from scratch. I’m this Asian guy with spiky hair and checkered Vans, my first assistant is a California kid, and the second assistant is a hipster with tattoos running down her arms. We had to win them over with our charming ways.

On another occasion, we were out near Marfa. It was already ten at night and I had nothing planned for the next day. I was feeling really depressed as all I’d done that day was hang out in a field throwing rocks at a fence while the cowboys were out working on horseback. That night, we came across a bar and got to chatting with the bartender, and out of sheer desperation, I asked her if she knows any cowboys. It turns out her ex-husband is a cowboy and we ended up driving 3 hours due west and making some of the best images from the trip.

It sounded like you were shooting film. Why did you decide to shoot film?

No, I was shooting digital. I haven’t shot film in a long while. For the portraits I used a medium format digital back (Leaf Aptus at 75 S on a Hasselblad H2). For the documentary shots, I used a Cannon 1Ds2. There was a ton of dust and shit kicking up everywhere I went. For someone who rarely needs to clean his cameras, I was in my motel every night with an air blower and Pec Pad cleaning my cameras Nachtwey-style.

Cowboys, cows, horses and octabanks don’t sound like a natural combination and I suppose that’s why Texas Monthly choose you for this assignment. Did you ever feel completely out of your element like what the hell am I doing here? A New Yorker out in the middle of Texas with a bunch of cowboys sounds like a recipe for trouble to me.

Hey, I’ve only been a New Yorker for four years. I may not have grown up on a ranch (or anywhere near cows or horses), but I am from Texas.

I did feel out of my element at the beginning. I had just come out of 3 straight months of shooting my usual fare. Celebrity shoots where everything has been discussed and agreed upon and every moment of the shoot accounted for. Advertising campaigns with art directors and their clients standing in front of the monitor approving every shot frame by frame. Now here I was in Texas with no one telling me what to do. It’s a photographer’s dream, but it took a bit to get used to.

As far as trouble goes, no one was seriously injured in the process. I drank a lot of beer, ate a cow testicle or two, rode a crazy horse, heard jokes that haven’t been kosher since ’64, tried to lasso a fence post, and ate at a lot of Dairy Queens. A lot.

When you decided to do the lit portraits were you thinking this is my style and I’m sticking with it even if the 7b’s get covered in shit or were you thinking of bringing something new to the genre of cowboy portraits?

Lighting the photos had always been my plan. I’d seen a lot of images of cowboys growing up and I wanted to bring something new to the table while staying true to who they are. It rained a couple of days and there was lots of dust everywhere we went. The lights were always tarped to keep out the elements.

Of your other portrait work how much is planned and how much is just “let’s see what’s happening when we get there.”

I started my training as a newspaper photographer. As a journalist, you are not permitted to affect the environment. When I moved to magazines, this way of thinking stuck with me for years, and helped bring a candid, found quality to my photos. With celebrity work, you can’t tell a publicist “we’ll just get there and see what happens.” You have to assure them you won’t make their client look like an ass. My shoots now are much more planned and produced, but I always strive to keep some spontaneity.

Yum.

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16 Comments

  1. great pics. But Cowboys on the cover of Texas Monthly? Isnt that like Vice Magazine having a Hipster cover story? How about Cowgirls?
    whatever. no one commented on this thread because it has no sage advice for budding “photographers”
    Props to Peter for taking on a tired subject. And downing a nad.
    For me though, the BEST cowboy pic is the one by David Allan Harvey with the old man in the general store looking down. Awesome.

  2. Great assignment…I think it is very encouraging to see a magazine do a spread like that and bring in someone from afar, turn him loose, instead of using someone at hand. Cowboys is such a rich subject,never get tired of it. Kudos Peter, you are a lucky guy…

    matthew pace

  3. As a Texan in California I think he captured the essence and feeling of them there real life cowboys. Amazing shots.

  4. Peter is a great photographer. I remember when he was still in Texas with a just a photoblog documenting his learning experiences with using strobes and finding his own lighting style.

    On a side note, I actually prefer these sorts of posts from APE that detail the experiences of a working photographer. There’s a lot to learn from these interviews. Thanks Rob!

  5. @ J.M.

    Are you sure you don’t mean William Albert Allard?

    temple.edu/photo/photographers/allard/allard2.htm

  6. @2: Yang kind of is at hand for TM…He’s shot cowboys for TM several times in the past and has been doing work for them on a pretty regular basis for several years now which I believe started while he was still based in TX.

    anyways props to Yang….he’s one of my favs.

  7. Is anyone else finally bored with let’s pull out every light we own look? There are great photos in here where the lights were taking a break.

    The single blood covered hat is amazing. There are places for lights – even on a ranch – I’m just ready for the look to be filed away with the cross-processing and shift-focus phase.

  8. I’m not bored with it at all.

    I love Peter Yang’s light. FWIW, I do not think it is over-lit in the least. It’s simple, detailed and respectful of the ambient.

    As for the food, you had me at DQ, but lost me with the Rocky Mountain Oyster…

    -DH

  9. Seriously beautiful shots, the kind that finally make me comfortable moving away from film, even if there is heavy post-processing involved.

    As for lighting, I think Peter exercised pretty great judgment about when to let ambient light do its thing and when to throw in some extra 7b power. Only one that was overkill was the super zoomed out, individual shot of Rooster.

    Favorite among the project were the 1st b/w, as well as the last image looking up at Donald; the sun rays diffused through the clouds are pretty killer. I’m on a cross country bike trip right now, and I wish I could have that kind of front lighting power.

    Rob- great post, it’s nice to get the photog’s insight on how this kind of ‘dream shoot’ is run. Awesome questions on your end too, and I hope you run more features like these.

  10. I think the lighting is great. How else are you supposed to get some light under that hat to show the cowboy’s face and keep the rest of the image in balance? It makes for a great portrait that is about the subject.

    At least he didn’t set up 30 heads and use way too much sharpening ala that tired greenberg-esque crap people go nuts for on Strobist…

  11. Had a BALL in Chihuahua too!

    http://bp0.blogger.com/_By8ftK65Y3Y/SF0pBNF9VeI/AAAAAAAAASw/emo1uZuyWuU/s1600-h/_RMR0104.jpg

    http://raechel-runningvivalavida.blogspot.com/

    I’m not sure if my post came through the other day so I’m sending along MY ball shot!

    It is really GREAT to see the work of Peter Yang and Seamus Murphy;

    All of a matter of coincidence or the fact that timing is everything! I was stoked to here SOMEONE got a 16 day editorial, and I loved the behind the scenes slideshow; As Brooks Jensen from Lenswork said, there is no better time in the world to be a photo geek! and I agree!

    I have been working in Chihuahua documenting the local cultures and traditions for the past year; no big lights, no lovely assistant, no budget or job for that matter. But I feel I’m doing my LIFEs work and I am busy everyday learning and seeing new worlds. It is assuring to know I’m not the only one taking the wrong road only to be at the right place and I would imagine that the dirt and the smell of burning hair and flesh, and the feeling for this landscape will be points of reflection as Peter goes back to the commercial world and perhaps that sense of WILD and free will long echo in his future work.

    I have never heard of Seamus until these past few days;
    To see Seamus’s work on my port of entry and departure was to say the least disturbing for the impossible truth of what to do about it- I LOVEd his poignant vision and I see his love for the hard truths.

    this link was sent to me and I think about a British photog looking at our issues. I haven’t seen this too much in our own press. Seeing his work made me revisit Susan Mieselas work;
    Photographs that say so much, ask us to not forget and ask the hard questions…

    http://flash.vx.roo.com/streamingVX/1003/1152/mexicofrontier/index.html

    Thanks for sharing!!! Running AROUND the WEST!!! RAEch

  12. Wonderful series of images and I do appreciate the insights from the backstage per se. The images inspire me …

    ~ edd

  13. […] As a journalist, we feel better when the same story comes from two different sources. As a photographer, Peter Yang, who  lives in Brooklyn, hails from the great state of Texas, and photographs subjects all over the world has already been the focus of stories on Strobist and A Photo Editor  […]

  14. […] As a journalist, we feel better when the same story comes from two different sources. As a photographer, Peter Yang, who lives in Brooklyn, hails from the great state of Texas, and photographs subjects all over the world has already been the focus of stories on Strobist and A Photo Editor. […]


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