Customer Reviews

Vanishing Breed: Photographs of the Cowboy and the West

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A series of photo's that capture the modern day cowboys and the area countryside they call home.

The pictures shows sides of America many people don't know still exist. I have treasured this book for several years.

Color has a way of prettifying the West, and there are plenty of photography books that use color for that, some of them aiming for calendar art. Allard manages to use it with much broader intentions. He portrays not only the breadth and vastness of the Western landscape but the dust, dirt, and sweat of working with cattle and the irony of freedom when it's often just another word for nothing left to lose. If any book of Western photography captured the spirit of "Bobby McGee," this one surely does.

There are about 100 photographs in this collection, taken in cowboy country from Mexico to Montana during the years 1965-1980. A few are landscapes; most are of cowboys, some Native Americans, a few women and children. Allard has also included photographs of a rural Hutterite community in Montana. There are rodeo pictures and scenes of roundup and of night-life, men either gathered around a campfire or hanging out in bars. There are many fine portrait shots of men, their faces showing the fatigue and the effects of weather and years of tobacco and hard drinking. Scattered through the book are pages devoted to brief profiles of men Allard has befriended, young and old. A brief foreword is provided by Montana novelist Thomas McGuane.

My favorite images start with a shadowy landscape of Wyoming, dark and moody, while a setting or rising sun throws golden light over a ridge line in the middle distance. Second favorite is a swath of snow-covered Montana prairie with a fence line leading away to what looks like abandoned buildings on the horizon. There's a handsome portrait of a Nevada cowboy, bearded, looking into the camera under the brim of his hat with soulful dark brown eyes. There's a back-pocket view of a row of nine cowboys sitting on the top rail of a rodeo arena fence.

Many photos are just plain quirky. Three women rodeo performers in brightly colored cowboy hats rub Vaseline over their teeth. A man stands with his arm around the shoulders of a smiling woman wearing woolly chaps, while behind them another man lies passed out on the ground. A cowboy in black Stetson and long yellow rain slicker bends with a pool cue to line up a shot across a smoky pool table. Sitting alone at the end of a long row of bar stools, lighted by a long shaft of afternoon light, a cowboy sits slack-jawed and staring, a can of Olympia between his legs.

I loved this book and happily recommend it. If you can find a copy, it goes nicely on a shelf of Western literature. As companion volumes, I'd recommend Douglas Kent Hall's "Working Cowboys," Kendall Nelson's "Gathering Remnants" and a collection of vintage photographs, "The American Cowboy."

This book is magnificent. I found all kinds of new ways of looking at things, lighting. capturing the moment. I couldn't belive it. It effected something deep inside. not because of it "captured" cowboys, but because of the sheer artistry and Allard's vision and expertise.

This book was published in 1982 when the cowboy and the cowboy way of live was already vanishing. Now nearly 30 years later, I would imagine there are now even less of them.

Allard, a long-time contributor to National Geographic, is probably one of the greatest living photographers around. He's brilliant at both capturing landscapes and people-no small feat as most photographers tend to be better at one than the other. Even if you are not that interested in the West, I recommend this book to any would-be photographer who is interested in shooting people, landscapes or both in natural life.