Publisher's Synopsis
Our idea of what a cowboy looks like is shaped by many influences: Hollywood with its countless movies, American country music in all its variety, the famous Marlboro commercials and, of course, Brokeback Mountain. What all these images have in common is that they are mostly fictitious or at least removed from reality. Similarly, Martin Schreiber does not claim to depict reality in his photographs. His works mix romantic, idealised images of a pristine landscape with the toils of hard labour, and blend the smell of testosterone with a sultry homoeroticism. Of course, Schreiber took his pictures more than 30 years ago, long before the debate about male role models began to take hold. For more than a year, Schreiber roamed the vast landscapes of Texas, camera in hand, visiting cattle farms and rodeo shows and portraying cowboys at work, in their leisure time, in the saddle and on the couch.
