COWBOY LIFE by Kasper Løftgaard

This is a story about cowboy culture. About a special kind of people, who live the lives of real cowboys, that I personally didn’t think existed anymore. But as it turns out, there are plenty around.
I became friends with these boys and men in Odessa and Gardendale, Texas and photographed them. Most of them are students at the Odessa College Rodeo Program, some are coaches, and some are regular cowboys.
I ended up living with Shawn Hogg, whom I introduce at the beginning of the series. He was kind enough to let me into his life, and I started photographing him and his family. He ended up being the main character in my story.
My aim is to show a culture and a group of people, whom we have a certain imagination about the way they are supposed to look. He’s Lucky Luke, he’s the Marlboro Man, he’s John Wayne. And in many ways, this collective imagination of ours is true, but in a lot of ways it’s not. Most of all, these cowboys are kind and humble human beings, fathers and sons, living in a modern world.