Project changed photographer’s perspective of ranches, cowboys
http://www.gazette.com/articles/keen_24557___article.html/ranches_book.html
By BILL REED, THE GAZETTE
A ranch is really no place for a city boy, but this Colorado Springs photographer is on a mission. For the past five years, Keen has toted his cameras to 30 of the finest ranches of the American West, hoping to use his art to help save them from extinction.
His coffee-table book “Great Ranches of the West” is being released this week, just in time to coincide with the local rodeo season.
Besides learning the difference between a cow and a steer, Keen fell in love with the honesty, wisdom and work ethic of working cowboys. His affection is present in the 600 pictures he created, and the stories he tells about the historical, familyowned ranches flung over 17 states — including two in Colorado: the Bledsoe Ranch near Hugo, and the Nottingham-Albertson Ranch, about an hour north of Vail.
“My book is an art book,” Keen said, “but I want people to understand more about ranchers and what great people they are. There’s a real dangerous trend in our country of these ranches going out of business.”
Keen is winning fans within the ranching community, including Mike Callicrate, owner of Ranch Foods Direct and a passionate evangelist for local foods from family-owned ranches. “I think, through the pictures, you can see that the people on ranches are families, are real people,” Callicrate said.
Callicrate worries that U.S. food and trade policies are threatening ranchers and thinks Keen’s work can serve as a call to action.
“Jim, through this book, is going to hopefully touch people’s hearts and show them that this is an industry and a lifestyle that’s worth saving.”
About 14 percent of American ranches closed down during the past decade, according to Keen’s research. Dying ranches often kill the rural communities around them. And Keen is afraid of the repercussions if the United States must import the vast majority of its food, like its oil, instead of producing its own.
“We cannot have freedom unless we are self-sufficient in what we eat,” Callicrate said.
Callicrate said ranches are an essential piece of that selfsufficiency. And Keen is a recent convert to his way of thinking. Keen is a California beach boy by birth. He’s been a professional photographer and filmmaker for four decades, and moved to Colorado Springs in 1993.
An avid outdoorsman who’s hiked all of Colorado’s 54 fourteeners, he published his first photography book in 2001 — “Colorado Rocky Mountain Wide,” a collection of panoramic landscapes.
While Keen was promoting that book, he found himself at the National Western Stock Show in Denver and got acquainted with the ranching legacy of the region. Saddle bronc rider Tom Reeves invited Keen to bring his cameras to the Reeves family ranch in South Dakota, and the seed was planted.
Keen hopscotched across the West, going to familyowned ranches most respected by other ranchers, some with a history that stretches back more than 150 years. He savored everyday life on the ranch. He was there for roundups and branding, for small trials and little victories.
And the city boy was in for a few surprises, besides being knocked down by a steer. He was struck by the depth of the work ethic on the ranch, by the wrongheadedness of the idea that all cowboys are hayseeds, and by the environmental concern of ranchers.
Many ranchers wish that folks knew more about their way of life.
“I would say that the new public awareness of environmental issues, food safety and their interest in our national ranching heritage is not a threat as much as an opportunity,” said rancher Duke Phillips, who runs the 87,000-acre Chico Basin Ranch southeast of Colorado Springs. “The gulf between urban dwellers and ranchers is so wide it’s scary. And it’s widening. The public needs to have a better understanding of ranching. Ranchers provide an important role in ecosystem management that goes unrecognized that they should be rewarded for, but if people do not know it is even being done, how can ranchers be credited?”
In five years, Keen was transformed from a curious observer to a fierce defender of the ranching culture.
“Their livelihood depends on taking care of the land. I met some wise and smart environmentalists who wear cowboy hats,” Keen said. “Some of them have college degrees in environmental science. They have education, and a lifetime of experience, and they really do care. They’re out there every day. Most members of the Sierra Club live in the city.”
Ranching is more than a job, Keen said. One of the cowboys told him it is a calling, a link to the heritage and spirit of the American West. And that’s what he tried to capture with his lens. “It’s a slowly passing way of life,” said local rancher Scotty Hall, “but it is passing.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0226 or bill.reed@gazette.com
DETAILS
“Great Ranches of the West” book signing at Jim Keen’s studio, with photos for sale, music and refreshments.
Where: 4485 Emerald Drive (Austin Bluffs Parkway east from Academy Boulevard, left on Turquoise Drive, left on Emerald)
When: 4:30-8:30 p.m. Friday
More info: Call Jim at 593-2155; or order the book, $49.95, at greatrancheswest.com.
Discussion and book signing for “Great Ranches of the West.”
Where: Borders at 2120 Southgate Road
When: 2-4 p.m. July 15 More info: 632-6611