In October 1973, I traveled to Butte, Montana for The New York Times to photograph its copper miners. Known as “the richest hill on earth,” Butte once supplied over a third of the world’s copper. Miners — Old Stock Americans, Finns, Cornish, Welsh, Chinese, Italians,...
Let’s face it, Old Faithful, Great Fountain Geyser, Norris Geyser Basin, and the various Yellowstone fumaroles don’t get a lot of attention when they’re in the steam phase, which comes after all the “oohs” and “ahhs” and visual thrills of an eruption. Sitting by myself,...
What does the West mean to you? Is it a place, a lifestyle, a feeling, a philosophy? In the centuries since Euro-Americans first explored the country’s interior, the West has changed beyond the imaginations of those who first mapped it. In that relatively short time,...
Mountain biking promises freedom and escape, but most rides are confined to a dirt strip just wide enough for two tires. While I love the feeling of cruising fast remote singletrack, what really obsesses me is freeriding: descending an open face where the trail is...
The alarm goes off, and my eyes open. Ok, let’s do this. “This” is getting out of a warm bed and putting on layer after layer, capping it all off with a somewhat bulky drysuit. It’s going to be a perfect morning: sunny, no wind,...
As the foggy autumn faded beyond my reach, my journey tempted me yonder into the vacuum of winter’s mantle of snow. I was looking for minimalistic subjects, basic in shape. The mesmerizing simplicity is key when I’m looking for a single point of interest. Highly...
In the spring of 2024, I contacted the Gallatin History Museum in my hometown of Bozeman, Montana, looking for historical photographs of two country schools in the area, Malmborg and Springhill. I wanted to compare the old images with photographs I’d captured. Co-director Charlotte Mills...
The West has intrigued me since I was a kid. I grew up in the Midwest, playing in the woods, observing wildlife, and discovering photography. Given my early affinity for the outdoors, it made sense that I would be drawn to the West, to the...
As the blue light of dusk faded to an obsidian black, I gathered my gear. Upon opening the door of my camper van and stepping into the night, coyotes broke the silence and began to sing — or so it’s described by numerous Western authors....
Looking back, the country got me first. Spending countless miles driving through the West was intoxicating; an obsession that only worsened after years of snowboarding remote backcountry slopes and fly fishing the world’s most beautiful rivers. Once you experience that type of recreational solitude, nothing...