Horse Girl

Bull riding is typically considered the main event of most rodeos, but for a lot of people in the stands, it’s all about the horses. And no one dominates horse riding like cowgirls. From barrel racing to trick riding, the women of rodeo excel at speed, precision, and agility. I love seeing little girls in the audience, decked out in pink cowgirl hats and dusty boots, climb the fence to get a better view, awed by the horses as much as the women driving them.

The below photos were taken last month at a Longbranch rodeo in Powhatan, Virginia. All night, I positioned myself close to the bucking chutes (the pens holding the bulls and their riders before they are released into the arena) in hopes of getting clear shots of the riders clinging for dear life to the massive bulls attempting to buck them. Under the dark of night and the glare of arena lights, my grainy Ilford Delta 3200 speed film did her best, but as I’ve developed the film and seen the results, it’s clear it was all about the horses for me too. I still have two more rolls of film I haven’t processed yet, and more to share from the ones I have, but today’s post is for the horse girls

I know most of you find your way here from social media and are probably on your phones, but I recommend viewing these images on a larger screen to really see the detail. Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.

Have a Seat on the Bed

A month or two ago I watched All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a documentary film about activist and photographer Nan Goldin. Goldin’s photographic work in the 1970s and 1980s largely documented her friends and surrounding community, usually presented in the form of ever-evolving slideshows, with themes heavy on relationships, sex, queerness, and the AIDS epidemic. The film itself is powerful, detailing Goldin’s activism against the makers of pharmaceutical opiates and their involvement in the nation’s opioid crisis, while also chronicling her rising art career. As the film went on, there was one theme I kept seeing in her photographs that struck me: people in bedrooms.

Greer and Robert on the bed, NYC by Nan Goldin

Nan and Brian in bed, NYC by Nan Goldin

Odalisque of the Bowery, NYC by Nan Goldin

Lynelle on my bed, NYC by Nan Goldin

Some of the images feel intimate, such as the first two above, seemingly capturing couples at the end of the night or waking up in the morning. It hardly feels like the photographer is there (although in fact she is literally there in the case of Nan and Brian in bed, NYC.) Others, like the fourth image Lynelle in my bed, NYC, feel half-posed. I imagine Nan spending a lot of time with her friends, winding up in each other’s homes and beds. At times, they barely pay attention to the camera always in Goldin’s hand; at others, they mug for her.

You can google “Nan Goldin bedroom photos” and find a long gallery of results. The fact that she did so much of this is striking to me. I am so rarely in my friends’ bedrooms, and they so rarely in mine. There is an intimacy in the sheer frequency she finds herself in these settings that I almost feel jealous of.

Maybe this is what inspired me. I found myself wanting to photograph people in their bedrooms. I made a Pinterest board. And I texted my friend Amy, who has a lovely bedroom, and is always game to sit in front of a camera. This is the beginning of a series.

All photos in this post, with the exception of the top four taken by Nan Goldin, were shot on Kodak UltraMax 400 35mm film and a Minolta X-700. Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.

Barbies, Broncos, and Barrels

I have been super-inspired by Barbie lately.

Maybe it’s the impending feature film, or my mother going on Poshmark shopping sprees for Barbie clothes and sharing her finds with me (yes, apparently you can buy Barbie clothes on Poshmark). Whatever it it, I have ideas. In my last post, I used Barbie to explore the relationship between her plastic body and our fleshy human ones, and I like the idea of combining the doll with actual people in future shoots. However, most of my ideas center Barbie as the focus, using a macro lens and carefully chosen locations to imagine what her life could look like.

I photograph a lot of rodeos, so when my mother found a Winking Western Barbie and Ken online, I knew I had to attempt a Barbie rodeo. (I did wind up putting the cowgirl attire on a different Barbie, because the Winking Barbie’s face was damaged). Any new concept takes a few tries to work the kinks out—this may be Barbie’s first rodeo, but I don’t think it’ll be her last. While a thrifted plastic horse came in handy to transform Barbie into a barrel racer, it was the sideline romance of two other characters that became the main story for me. My friend Steven shook his head at me when he found out I used a roll of Lomochrome Purple for this shoot, a specialty film made by Lomography with purple color shifts, but the roll was given to me by another friend who wasn’t entirely sure if she’d shot anything on it, so I didn’t want to save it for anything too precious.

Turns out she had shot it, but just didn’t fully rewind the lead. In some of the below images, you’ll see double exposures that literally add another layer to this already otherworldly western moment.

Thanks for reading, you’re beautiful.