The Weekly Photograph #21
Ramón, from Carbon County
Entry #21 from The Work
Ramón
from the Carbon County Project
pigment print f. 8x10” film
40x50”
The bright Wyoming sun was not flattering for an open portrait, so I sought shelter and placed Ramón between two cream white shipping containers. I scouted the location prior and it proved a fitting place for a portrait. The two containers provided diffused light, but perhaps more importantly a context that portrays a Man as someone beset on all sides. Ramón worked on the same ranch as me in Wyoming. I met him there in late May, just as the cottonwood trees were blossoming. The people I photograph, much like the landscapes, begin with a sensory response of intense thrill. I can only describe it as a little anxiety attack, or the view of an absent loved one. As Ramon sat down near me that first time at the chuckwagon for lunch, I knew I would have to make his portrait one day. This feeling is often my first or “generative” step in the process. It is not analytical but more immediate than that. Analysis comes later, as I try to reconcile my inner will towards composition and how I feel the photograph should look. What was it about this Man? Up until the day I took this photo of him, I had only seen him in his kitchen garment work clothes in white. His face is what I found fascinating. The age and expression one can see in his portrayal is a Kingly one — he had told me he was being fired from his job. In the photograph he is specially dressed for his departure. He was gone the next day.
John Sanderson
”The Work”
2/25/2025
This image is included in the Carbon County booklet and folio box published by Zatara Press.
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Journal introduction from The Work
The American landscape in my time. Thousands upon thousands of miles traversed in search of pictures.
They become pictures when I see something.
Something which cannot be explained in words, only related to on some level of empathy.
Feeling with the light, subject or an arrangement of the two.
Driving, walking, searching deeper and longer for that which eludes me.
What I search for is unattainable.
But what keeps me coming back is the Quest, for those moments where a picture lines up with my imagination.
It is a complete circle.
"To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield." -Tennyson
Those shipping containers really frame him perfectly.