I started this blog back in September of 2014, but I wasn't sure where I was going with it.
I used to post a lot more frequently than I do now, mostly because I don't work with the crew as much. I am fortunate enough to have taken a less active role in the hard work, thanks to our wonderful crew and our sons.
Recently, I was contacted by a stranger who had seen some of my photograph cards at a local shop. He grabbed my business card, and I agreed to meet with him. He enjoyed the pictures from my blog, and encouraged me to keep posting. "The blog is a diary," he said. "It shows change, as well as the endless cycle of [our] work." He wrote an article about me, which humbled me and made me realize just how special the life we lead is. Here is what he wrote:
High Desert Ranch Wife
Story by Andy Romanoff — Pictures by Tana Baker
Once you leave Hinckley Utah you’re pretty much on your own till you come to the Borderline Casino ninety miles later. I’d been driving for hours on deserted two-lane without passing any signs of life along the way. It’s the kind of road where if you stop to pee you can just let loose anywhere cause no one’s going to see you anyway. Darcy and I were on our way to Great Basin National Park and a motel nearby, but first, we were making a stop in Baker to pick up some supplies.
Baker Nevada is a bend in the road on hwy 487. It’s what’s called a census-designated place, only about 70 people living in a small cluster of homes and a couple of stores. Among them is the Bristlecone General Store, where we stop for food and conversation. And poking around the place I glance at a rack of business cards and spot one that says; High Desert Ranch Wife Photography.
Flipping it over I read; Photos of a real working ranch -- Tana Baker, the real working ranch wife, and there’s a website. Well you know I have to check that out.
Now let’s take a minute here to make it clear how far we are from everything as I’m looking at this card. The nearest town is probably Ely, about 60 miles away. Salt Lake is a modest 229 miles; Carson City is 320 miles if you head in the other direction. So we are not just nowhere, we are in the center of nowhere. And somewhere out here a person named Tana Baker is taking pictures of her life on a cattle ranch and putting them up on a website to show the world. And Tana is not just spending a week or two shooting pictures on the ranch, she’s been telling this story for years. She is living her life in the middle of her story.
For the most part, Tana is not offering us Life magazine photography — the herd and the cowboys beautifully photographed from the edge of the action. Instead, her pictures have been made while riding with the herd; she shows us what it’s like to be in the middle of the work and she shows us what happens in the in-between moments when most people would put their cameras away. That’s different.
What else is different is all the things she shows you about cattle ranching, the parts that most stories leave out. There is dust and heat of course — or snow if you wait a few months, and there are cowboys and cowgirls doing hard things so we can eat a cheap burger. Because one thing that Tana does is make it clear that this is not an easy life. She shows you the details, the hundred little things she sees, and that is what makes this more than a simple essay. One thing I love is that her blog takes you back through the years. As I click through the pages I start to see the rhythms of her life out here, calving and moving herds to pasture, the culling of the weak and the accepting dependence on weather. This is an older way of living she is showing us. One more bound to the cycles of life then we can easily experience in the city.
And one more thing I love is her comments, interspersed between the photos. They are so directly about what she is photographing and its importance to life on the ranch. Weather has life or death meaning, water isn’t a given, her horse so much a part of what she does that she writes … “I always try to include some of my horse in the picture so I can remember who I was riding that day … ”The heifers hunkered down in the ditch to stay warm” … and this which says a lot about the reality of taking these pictures … “I should remind you that every time I take a picture I have to take my glove off, and it never fails, at least once in the day I drop it. I should explain how big of a deal dropping my glove is. For one thing, I am wearing about 42 layers of clothes and warm boots. I also ride a VERY tall horse and for those of you that don’t know me, I am a whopping 5 foot 4. So getting off and back on does have its challenges.”…
It’s not all pretty what she pictures. Corresponding back and forth with Tana at one point she writes to me, “I want to warn you now about some of the things you are going to see. If the sight of animals being roped and thrown to the ground so that they can be tagged or castration or a hundred other things that happen as part of ranching better to move on to the next story” and she’s right of course. But that’s neither the focus nor the point of these pictures; it’s just part of her life and she shows it.
So there you have it, a most unlikely story found in a most unlikely place. I went looking for dark night skies and instead found pictures made by someone far from the photographic world and city life, pictures that are worth looking at and thinking about.
I wonder if there isn’t a gallery owner somewhere who might want to recognize this work and get Tana to mount a show. It’s iPhone photography but it harkens back to the beginnings of photography when people went around the world making pictures to bring the unseen to the rest of us. Better yet some book publisher should explore the story that could be made from all this but I’ll leave it to them to get on with it. For me I’m just glad that Tana Baker has taken the time to show me what her world feels like.
Tana Baker - High Desert Ranch Wife Photography - https://www.highdesertranchwife.com/
Story by Andy Romanoff
Pictures at https://andyromanoff.zenfolio.com/
Writing at https://medium.com/stories-ive-been-meaning-to-tell-you
YouTube Channel at Youtube
I used to post a lot more frequently than I do now, mostly because I don't work with the crew as much. I am fortunate enough to have taken a less active role in the hard work, thanks to our wonderful crew and our sons.
Recently, I was contacted by a stranger who had seen some of my photograph cards at a local shop. He grabbed my business card, and I agreed to meet with him. He enjoyed the pictures from my blog, and encouraged me to keep posting. "The blog is a diary," he said. "It shows change, as well as the endless cycle of [our] work." He wrote an article about me, which humbled me and made me realize just how special the life we lead is. Here is what he wrote:
High Desert Ranch Wife
Story by Andy Romanoff — Pictures by Tana Baker
Once you leave Hinckley Utah you’re pretty much on your own till you come to the Borderline Casino ninety miles later. I’d been driving for hours on deserted two-lane without passing any signs of life along the way. It’s the kind of road where if you stop to pee you can just let loose anywhere cause no one’s going to see you anyway. Darcy and I were on our way to Great Basin National Park and a motel nearby, but first, we were making a stop in Baker to pick up some supplies.
Baker Nevada is a bend in the road on hwy 487. It’s what’s called a census-designated place, only about 70 people living in a small cluster of homes and a couple of stores. Among them is the Bristlecone General Store, where we stop for food and conversation. And poking around the place I glance at a rack of business cards and spot one that says; High Desert Ranch Wife Photography.
Flipping it over I read; Photos of a real working ranch -- Tana Baker, the real working ranch wife, and there’s a website. Well you know I have to check that out.
Now let’s take a minute here to make it clear how far we are from everything as I’m looking at this card. The nearest town is probably Ely, about 60 miles away. Salt Lake is a modest 229 miles; Carson City is 320 miles if you head in the other direction. So we are not just nowhere, we are in the center of nowhere. And somewhere out here a person named Tana Baker is taking pictures of her life on a cattle ranch and putting them up on a website to show the world. And Tana is not just spending a week or two shooting pictures on the ranch, she’s been telling this story for years. She is living her life in the middle of her story.
For the most part, Tana is not offering us Life magazine photography — the herd and the cowboys beautifully photographed from the edge of the action. Instead, her pictures have been made while riding with the herd; she shows us what it’s like to be in the middle of the work and she shows us what happens in the in-between moments when most people would put their cameras away. That’s different.
What else is different is all the things she shows you about cattle ranching, the parts that most stories leave out. There is dust and heat of course — or snow if you wait a few months, and there are cowboys and cowgirls doing hard things so we can eat a cheap burger. Because one thing that Tana does is make it clear that this is not an easy life. She shows you the details, the hundred little things she sees, and that is what makes this more than a simple essay. One thing I love is that her blog takes you back through the years. As I click through the pages I start to see the rhythms of her life out here, calving and moving herds to pasture, the culling of the weak and the accepting dependence on weather. This is an older way of living she is showing us. One more bound to the cycles of life then we can easily experience in the city.
And one more thing I love is her comments, interspersed between the photos. They are so directly about what she is photographing and its importance to life on the ranch. Weather has life or death meaning, water isn’t a given, her horse so much a part of what she does that she writes … “I always try to include some of my horse in the picture so I can remember who I was riding that day … ”The heifers hunkered down in the ditch to stay warm” … and this which says a lot about the reality of taking these pictures … “I should remind you that every time I take a picture I have to take my glove off, and it never fails, at least once in the day I drop it. I should explain how big of a deal dropping my glove is. For one thing, I am wearing about 42 layers of clothes and warm boots. I also ride a VERY tall horse and for those of you that don’t know me, I am a whopping 5 foot 4. So getting off and back on does have its challenges.”…
It’s not all pretty what she pictures. Corresponding back and forth with Tana at one point she writes to me, “I want to warn you now about some of the things you are going to see. If the sight of animals being roped and thrown to the ground so that they can be tagged or castration or a hundred other things that happen as part of ranching better to move on to the next story” and she’s right of course. But that’s neither the focus nor the point of these pictures; it’s just part of her life and she shows it.
So there you have it, a most unlikely story found in a most unlikely place. I went looking for dark night skies and instead found pictures made by someone far from the photographic world and city life, pictures that are worth looking at and thinking about.
I wonder if there isn’t a gallery owner somewhere who might want to recognize this work and get Tana to mount a show. It’s iPhone photography but it harkens back to the beginnings of photography when people went around the world making pictures to bring the unseen to the rest of us. Better yet some book publisher should explore the story that could be made from all this but I’ll leave it to them to get on with it. For me I’m just glad that Tana Baker has taken the time to show me what her world feels like.
Tana Baker - High Desert Ranch Wife Photography - https://www.highdesertranchwife.com/
Story by Andy Romanoff
Pictures at https://andyromanoff.zenfolio.com/
Writing at https://medium.com/stories-ive-been-meaning-to-tell-you
YouTube Channel at Youtube
My blog has shown the wet years and the dry.
It has shown the cold snowy winters and saving calves from freezing.
It's recorded our unconventional ways of "fixing" things.
I have recorded our compassion and love for our animals.
The blog is a record of the harsh climate and weather conditions we endure.
I have recorded our children growing and learning.
My blog records the journey over the same trails year after year. The changes in vegetation and even the color of the cow herd.
After having a story written about us and what we do, I have come to appreciate it even more. I plan on sharing our life's journey more in the future.
Also, I hope to figure out how to link a page to this blog so anyone who wishes can purchase my cards or photos.
Thank you to all who read my blog.
Tana
Also, I hope to figure out how to link a page to this blog so anyone who wishes can purchase my cards or photos.
Thank you to all who read my blog.
Tana
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