Final--Aften Ritzman

Growing up in a small, rural, western town I was surrounded by cowboys, cattle, horses, and wide open spaces. I lived in cowboy boots and blue jeans. My skin care consisted of scrubbing the dust and sweat from my face at the end of the day. My hands were calloused and my nails had a constant crescent of dirt beneath them. I believed the whole world lived the way we did in my tiny home town.

When I went off to college I realized the world was not the way I had once believed it to be. Seeing cowboy boots walking down the sidewalk was a rarity. My new community did not understand what I meant when I talked about hauling hay, and they complained about our distance from urban centers. For the first time I realized the American Cowboy is a dying breed.

In this photographic project I use cowboy boots and landscapes of cattle, horses, and rangeland, empty of the men and women who traditionally occupy them, to portray the nostalgia I feel when thinking about what once was.