FIVE GENERATIONS

Over the years I've come to see that photographing land is not so different from making a portrait. People shape the land they live with, and the land in turn reveals them. When I photograph a place, I think of it as a portrait of the land itself, and often of the people who have been its stewards.

A family asked me to photograph their ranch in central West Texas. The owners' grandfather assembled it in the 1940s, and their grandchildren are now the fifth generation of the family to enjoy it. Twenty years from now, when those grandchildren are in their twenties, the land will have been in the family for 100 years.

The ranch lies between the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to the east and the vast expanse of West Texas to the west. Few large cities are nearby, and on moonless nights the skies to the north stay dark. The land is rugged, hilly and rocky, better suited to wildlife than to livestock, so the family uses it mostly for hunting and fishing. The fishing comes from Caddo Creek along the southern boundary, which can be beautiful and can also rage when thunderstorms roll through.

After touring the property with the owners and hearing its history, I saw that a few images could never tell the whole story. The land holds many different environments, and the family has kept most of it in its natural state. Their mark is limited to the few structures built over the last 80 years for their enjoyment. So the work became a book of many images, from the creek and the land to the night sky and the old porch.