as if i needed to become an even more extreme jeff bridges fan.

one of the many amazing things about living in south dakota was the fact that i actually got to realize and experience that REAL cowboys still exist. and that there is a REAL wild west, with millions of acres of open land, horses galloping in the distance & gun fights where cops can't reach [i'm not kidding, this has happened in SD over the last year]. one of the many reasons i loved 'crazy heart' & 'true grit' so much, was that they both spoke to the part of me that misses my south dakota. the bright blue skies, the bright white clouds, the forests in the prairie, the horses and the backbone & hardiness of the wild west. the no bullshit kind of life - plain & simple. awesome & powerful.

jeff bridges has become one of my favorite actors in the last couple of years - [no, i haven't watched 'big lebowski' 56 times] and then i come to find out that he is also a photographer in his own rite. and that he shoots on a panoramic camera called the 'wide lux'. i had never previously heard of this thing, but i do recall seeing photos like this. i freakin' love his photographs. like, super love.

i can also totally relate to them. the wide, open, vast-ness of them, the feeling that he is able to capture of loneliness, yet grace, honesty & silence. many of you have seen my thousands of photographs of my life in south dakota through my 35mm shots. so you get it, or at least you've seen what i'm talking about.  i also think that SD made me really take my photography to the next level - with no one around too often to do fun photoshoots with, i sought out a deeper connection to myself and to my surroundings by hangin tough with my camera, a damn good cup of coffee and a tank full of gas - it helped me to develop my photographic eye and also i was able to find deep connections by interacting with the land.

these photos make me nostalgic as hell; they are searingly accurate - capturing the wild lonesome west.

i underlined the sentence that i really resonated with below. mr. bridges was so able to articulate what taking wide format photographs is like. there IS so much to look at, even if its just of an open field, or rolling hills, or the subject only standing in 1/3 of the frame. there IS so much information in a photograph, so many stories. the wider the shot, the more you can take in, and experience the place for yourself. 

 jeff says:

"The Wide-Lux came back into my life on my wedding day. Mark Hanauer took some photographs at our wedding party with one. I really admired them - the way they showed movement and slurred time. There was so much information in the picture - so much to look at. It's almost as if the camera has peripheral vision - registering multiple stories within a single frame."

 

i especially like the last one of the corpse in the tree, and the 3 before that one.  the shadows in the tree, amazing. the homies all kicking back on a break - really is able to capture "homies" to me. like, real, true dudes having a good old buddy time with one another. and the second to last, wow. there is something so eerie, ghostly and powerful about that shot. 

 

which photograph is your favorite?? 

see more for yourself here: jeffbridges.com