A Meaningful Roadtrip
A Meaningful Roadtrip
John Langmore
October 23, 2016
“Southern Oregon’s ZX Ranch is a legendary outfit every cowboy wants to work for at least once. I was lucky enough to work there in 1979 as a sixteen year-old. It was on my first visit back thirty-four years later that I met Tucker Hoatson.
I returned in 2013 to photograph the ZX as part of my project on the American cowboy. Tucker and I were the only two men staying in the bunkhouse at the time. When the buckaroo (cowboy) boss, Jade Cooper, told us we had Sunday off, Tucker and I decided to head south for the Ranch Hand Rodeo in Winnemucca, Nevada, not fully appreciating we were committing to a round trip of 650 miles.
Fueled with gas and coffee, we turned south across some of the most remote and beautiful terrain in the western United States. Snow fell on our oversized Buick sedan as we wound our way down off the Pueblo Mountains into the high desert spanning the Oregon-Nevada border. Wild burros, horses and vast herds of pronghorn antelope moved unchallenged through country devoid of fences or any sign of human life.
After a few brief hours catching-up with old cowboy friends in Winnemucca, Tucker and I turned around and headed north for the long drive back to Christmas Valley, Oregon, knowing we had to be saddled up at 4:30 the next morning. Moving through the darkness that closed in and shrunk the world around us to an insignificant sliver of headlight on a rural highway, Tucker and I shared the common struggles of our sometimes troubled past. The quiet click of a shutter preserved the fond memory of a meaningful roadtrip and the friendship it inspired.”
See the full article in LFI 7/2016.
I returned in 2013 to photograph the ZX as part of my project on the American cowboy. Tucker and I were the only two men staying in the bunkhouse at the time. When the buckaroo (cowboy) boss, Jade Cooper, told us we had Sunday off, Tucker and I decided to head south for the Ranch Hand Rodeo in Winnemucca, Nevada, not fully appreciating we were committing to a round trip of 650 miles.
Fueled with gas and coffee, we turned south across some of the most remote and beautiful terrain in the western United States. Snow fell on our oversized Buick sedan as we wound our way down off the Pueblo Mountains into the high desert spanning the Oregon-Nevada border. Wild burros, horses and vast herds of pronghorn antelope moved unchallenged through country devoid of fences or any sign of human life.
After a few brief hours catching-up with old cowboy friends in Winnemucca, Tucker and I turned around and headed north for the long drive back to Christmas Valley, Oregon, knowing we had to be saddled up at 4:30 the next morning. Moving through the darkness that closed in and shrunk the world around us to an insignificant sliver of headlight on a rural highway, Tucker and I shared the common struggles of our sometimes troubled past. The quiet click of a shutter preserved the fond memory of a meaningful roadtrip and the friendship it inspired.”
See the full article in LFI 7/2016.
John Langmore+-
The Texan grew up in a family of photographers. In the seventies, his father, Bank Langmore, was one of the most important chroniclers of the American West, while his mother ran a portrait studio. Langmore turned to photography after first following a career as a lawyer. He is a founding member of the Austin Center for Photography and prefers to take on long-term photo projects. More