Cowboys and Their Landscape
(This is a letter to my picture editor at National Geographic Magazine about a story on Wyoming I was working on.)
Dear Dave,
I'm home from the range, so I thought I'd let you know. I don't think we're done there, but after a couple of months I needed a bit of distance. You should have a bunch to look at, rodeos, winter snow at Elk Mt., Basque Sheepherder, Hot Springs, an aerial or two, snowmobiling, Yellowstone Cafe or Shoshoni, Jeffrey City, moving sheep, and another 80 rolls that should have arrived yesterday from the Miller ranch in Big Piney. There should be a few good frames from that ranch. But things have slowed down out there and everyone is waiting for calving, lambing and branding. Winter so far out there has never really hit. I don't know about you, but with a little from our late summer shoot, the winter collection and a bit from spring, I think there is a good story about a unique part of this country. I can see it in the people pictures. Don't you think I should come out to D.C., go through a few yellow boxes and you and I have a good talk?
Richard
©2022 Richard Olsenius, Boarding room in Shoshoni, Wyoming
Tom Mix mural on a Wyoming drive-In 2022 Richard Olsenius
Moving Sheep down to their winter range from the Gravely Range, Montna.
A Nebraska ranch family and their morning ritual of allowing their daughter to climb in bad with them. This was photographer with permission on the “Day In The Life of America” book project.
Notes from the Field.
That’s the way it once worked at National Geographic. You would go out in the field, which in this case was Wyoming, working alone with occasional contact with the writer and my picture editor. But most often it was driving down endless roads, passing through small towns looking for anything that might make a photograph, a statement that would reinforce the feelings that I was experiencing. It was lonely at times and that forced me to explore the local gathering spots; bars, stores, long ranch roads, cafes, stockyards, and evening rodeos with many just located down the street from the Holiday Inn.
But slowly I gained confidence in just walking up to a door and saying, “Hi, I’m from National Geographic and I’m doing a story about the people in the West.” I never stopped being amazed when I heard back, “Well come on in.”