Women of the West

This week has given me the opportunity to meet and photograph two women differing in pursuit, but not in spirit.  Both women appreciate expressing themselves with physical effort and movement throughout the western landscape, searching for something allusive.

 

Jessica Hickman, a fitness trainer in Bend, Oregon competes in body sculpture events.  She tells me competition is the culmination of much dedicated training and discipline.  More than competing against others, she says, the events highlight one being their best at the moment.  I photographed her at Smith Rocks.  

Robby Bacon is a Buckaroo, a working cowboy in the Great Basin.  Though she couldn't answer how many women work in the toilsome, low paying, and masculine world of ranch hand, she knows there are not many.  As such she is hired by ranches to push cattle with her dogs and leather trappings riding horseback over the rocky, sage pocked slopes in the open range between Northern California and Utah.  When the work is done, she moves on to the next ranch hiring.  Being an authentic cowboy is difficult for anyone due to it's loneliness and unpredictability.  It's a young bachelor's life.  So Robby stands out, and is well respected at the Five-Dot Ranch out of Standish, CA.