October, 2016 - PhotoTrice

Remembering

The old general store post office in Cleo Texas was important to local farmers and ranchers as a community hub that bound people together. As with many country businesses it was a family affair. The store and home behind were inseparable.

As far as I can tell the store closed early autumn of 1974. At least that is when the calendar behind the glass front display cabinet stopped being turned forward. October 14th is scratched out. I imagine the owners must have felt time had come to an end in some way. Certainly their lives were changed forever. Even so, they continued living in the house and maintaining the property. Old habits a hard to break. Both the general store and residence survive more than forty years on.

I don’t know what happened to the people who lived in the house. There are no community residents left to ask about local history. It is clear they stayed on for some years. Long tended landscaping and a spacious screened porch survive in good order. Whatever happened they are gone now. The two rocking chairs remaining on the porch suggest comfortable habits and settled lives.

Closing Date - Cleo Texas — Closing Date – Cleo Texas

The Past and Future

The depopulation of rural America is well known. Small communities disappear as opportunities draw younger generations to cities. What is left are buildings that no longer serve the purpose for which they were built. These places are endlessly re-purposed to meet current needs but eventually they wear out and are abandoned.

A current fashion in photography is to document crumbling remains of buildings and infrastructure as a world in decline. I can’t see things in those terms. Instead when I visit old places I look for the signs of people who were builders and doers. Their stories are important to me.

Seeing the World

There are two constants in what I choose to photograph. First and foremost my interest is in the road less traveled. The places one cannot see when driving down the Interstate highway at eighty miles an hour. Second I’m interested in the people who live or once lived in small towns and rural surroundings. They are people who see the world in ways that are fundamentally different than average city dwellers. These two things are the reason I spend my time on the back roads of Texas with camera in hand.

My photographic interests are mostly drawn from the region where I live. That is not to say my images are always about the Southwest of the United States. I am a Westerner by birth and inclination but throughout my childhood and as an adult I rarely lived in one place for more than a few years before moving on. For me regional photography is about the place where I currently live. If you move around you learn to appreciate places for what they are or you have lots of unhappy time on your hands.

See My Work – See Me

Press Camera People get into photography for many reasons. I suspect that most of us who reach the point of competency with cameras have a strong desire to show work in public. I certainly do. So as a non-professional, how do you gain an audience for your photography? The simple answer is that I don’t know and I’ve never met anyone who could answer that question adequately. In many ways it comes down whether your ultimate goal is to market your photographic skills and of course, ego.

It seems to me that most photographers participating in online forums fall into two broad and overlapping categories. My experience is that 80-90% of all serious amateurs aspire to be professionals. That is a mighty bold ambition when the market for paying professional photo gigs is small and probably getting smaller. Broadly speaking, the remaining 10-20% is made up of family, nature and wildlife photographers of one stripe or another.

These groups of photographers are very different but share the problem of organizing and presenting work to their intended audiences. Just to be clear I’m not talking about posting pictures online in photography forums. An audience of nit-picking fellow photographers is probably the least effective way to get your work in front of the public. My goal, which I think is broadly shared, is to present work to non-photographers, regular people.

Over the years I’ve tried many different ways to gain an audience. None have been entirely successful or for that matter completely unsuccessful. Here is a short list of my attempts to reach an audience.

I currently have two websites, one active and another static for years
Photographing at historical reenactments over several seasons and donating a book of portraits to the living history organization
Creating small portfolios of work that are donated for display or sale
Attempting to submit work to the National Park Service
Making and distributing portraits of friends and family
Creating PDF calendars featuring my work distributed free of charge (see sidebar)

Here are some things that I intend to try.

Creating small collections of short essays and images in PDF format for solicited or unsolicited distribution
Creating small collections of loose prints packaged in presentation boxes with artist statement and a short essay for distribution to local arts venues
Building a Texas regional travel website featuring my work
Producing matted prints for local art sales
Producing matted and framed prints of Texas themed content for consignment to western furniture stores

I’m sure there are many other options that I’ve not considered. When you are a non-professional, budget and time are limiting factors. None of the things I’ve mentioned will help me reach a mass audience. I simply want to get my work into the hands of people who would enjoy seeing it if they knew it existed. To that end I’ll keep plugging away. Patience and perseverance are virtues, right?

Hill Country Autumn

Medina River in Autumn - 2016 — Medina River in Autumn – 2016

In many ways the Hill Country is the heart of Texas. It is only a few hundred feet higher than the surrounding areas in Central Texas but that small elevation change creates a unique climate zone. The temperatures are milder in the summer and cooler in the winter. Remnants of ancient maple and hardwood forests that once grew northward across the United States and into Canada still grow here.

The Hill Country is an especially important area for farming and ranching. It was settled in large part by German speaking immigrants who created excellent schools and cultural institutions. In fact German was commonly spoken and taught as a first language in parts of the Hill Country until after the Second World War. Today the language has disappeared but the cultural influence remains strong.

In autumn the mild temperatures and unique varieties of trees draw thousands of people to the area. In particular Lost Maples and Enchanted Rock State Parks are so heavily visited during the Fall that you have to make reservations just for a day trip. Fortunately there are many other scenic areas and byways crisscrossing the hills.

The photograph is of the Medina River just north of Bandera Texas, near the Southern edge of the Hill Country. I have been making photographs here more than ten years. The cycles of seasons, drought and abundant moisture are especially evident along the River. There have been times in recent years when the river was completely dry. Other times floods have ravaged the area, sometimes a few months apart. Today the river is at about average flow for the season. It moves gently along in the early morning sunshine.