It Was the Whiskey Talking
Montana, USA – 2022
Whilst the Wild West was no doubt a heavily mythologized era, there can be no doubt that both the level of wanton violence and whiskey consumption were for real. They also, no doubt, played off each other and my sense is that in the colder frontier towns, the relationship was even tighter.
Scouting for sites around the Crazy Mountain Ranch in Montana, I saw some potential with this angle outside the old saloon, if I chose to compress the depth a little. It is though the wolf that makes the photograph; those eyes have an unmistakable intent. Focus is the most important verb in my kind of photography as it serves to either deliberately include or deliberately exclude. In this way, the viewer is directed without the wider contextual story being lost.
My cowboy – Ryan Marshall – does not need to do much more than stand there to add to the image; he may be way out of the focal plane, but we all know exactly the kind of character he is playing. This looks like a formidable saloon.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 56” x 79” in (142.24 cm x 200.66 cm)
- Framed Image: 71” x 94” in (180.34 cm x 238.76 cm)
STANDARD: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 37” x 52” in (93.98 cm x 132.08 cm)
- Framed Image: 52” x 67” in (132.08 cm x 170.18 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Hot Chicks
Montana, USA – 2022
The VS model Josie Canseco is a regular muse for me in my wild west series; the camera loves her and she knows how I work. This photograph in the Crazy Mountain Ranch near Livingston, Montana was made by a late shaft of evening light giving Josie and the wolf a warm glow and allowing them both to pop out from the saloon behind.
Our shoot in the faux wild west frontier town would not have been possible without the support of Sam Byrne and his team at the Yellowstone Club. Under their ownership, the Crazy Mountain Ranch looks set to have an exciting future and I hope the series of photographs I took that day in February 2022 will find their way onto some walls in the wider Montana area.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 56” x 81” in (142.24 cm x 205.74 cm)
- Framed Image: 71” x 96” in (180.34 cm x 243.84 cm)
STANDARD: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 37” x 53” in (93.98 cm x 134.62 cm)
- Framed Image: 52” x 68” in (132.08 cm x 172.72 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
The Sheriff's Daughter
Montana, USA – 2022
The intricate layout for this picture was preconceived before I went to bed the previous night. I knew that as soon as the sun rose above the buildings the light would be too harsh to work and that there could be no time for compositional pondering during the shoot. The camera angle needed flat light not aggressive shadows and the weather forecast suggested that we would need to be finished no later than 8.15 am.
So, it was cold conditions when the cast began assembling at 6.15am. Josie Canseco – a girl I often use in shoots – is tough and she showed it that morning. We know each other well and we can swear at each other without offence. It was minus 20 degrees on set and she wasn’t wearing much but that is how Josie rolls. I like familiarity; to call on new talent that I did not know for a shoot like this would have been commercial suicide.
We did indeed wrap by 8.10am, just before the sun started to dart around the set. This photograph is a keeper. I can look at it for a long time without losing interest and that is always my acid test. There was so much information to include in one still frame without losing Josie’s sovereignty and we all needed to work very quickly because I was racing against the rising sun. The whole team did a great job that day.
I do think Westerns have been too male dominated, almost to the point of parody, and in my anthology to the Wild West, there is much more of a balance. We have, however, been most selective with the women we have used. They have all been blockbuster women with presence, intelligence and attitude; no more so than the Sheriff’s daughter in this image.
But I am making no major point in this image; I am having fun and telling stories. There are no lofty ambitions other than to entertain and execute well.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 44” x 103" in (111.76 cm x 261.62 cm)
- Framed Image: 59” x 118” in (149.86 cm x 299.72 cm)
STANDARD: Edition of 12
- Image Size: 30” x 69” in (76.2 cm x 175.26 cm)
- Framed Image: 45” x 84” in (114.3 cm x 213.36 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
The Residents
Montana, USA – 2022
I just can’t bring myself to drift from my default position of wanting wild west saloon images to be long of menace. I see no reason to introduce a mood of levity and laughter as these were bad ass days in loosely governed frontier towns marooned in the middle of nowhere. With alcohol and women came danger, perhaps it was always so. Of course, I am being postmodern and playful with the composed close ups; almost to the point of being cartoonish. But why dumb things down when we are simply telling stories.
On this set, high in the Crazy Mountains of Montana, we cast three of my favourite cowboys – Ty Mitchell and Ryan Marshall from West Texas and Mad Jack from Virginia City, Montana. Ty became an extra for Scorsese last year and I can see exactly why. The girls – Erica Lawrence from New York and Josie Canseco from LA – complemented them well.
But it is the big black wolf who steals the show and lifts the photograph. The light was negligible so there was no margin for error, but so long as I managed one sharp picture I knew the subdued lighting would add to the mood. This is a dangerous place where, during a storm induced lock in, anything could happen.
The weird thing is, everyone wants to go into that bar right now – what could possibly go wrong?
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12 + 3 AP
- Image Size: 56” x 84” in (142.24 cm x 213.36 cm)
- Framed Image: 71” x 99” in (180.34 cm x 251.46 cm)
STANDARD: ALL EDITIONS ALLOCATED OR SOLD. Please contact us for more details.
- Image Size: 37” x 56” in (93.98 cm x 142.24 cm)
- Framed Image: 52” x 71” in (132.08 cm x 180.34 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
The Quick and the Dead
Montana, USA – 2022
In my experience, the most visually pleasing single street wild west towns in America are found in the states of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Montana. There are no real secrets here, which is why film studios tend to focus on five or six specific locations.
There is a skew in my work towards shooting in Montana for two reasons: firstly, I have a far more established network of contacts and friends in Western Montana than in the states further south who can all help me find extras or indeed sometimes jump onto set themselves; secondly our Montana locations are exposed to the highest snowfalls and I like to work in the snow, it simply adds another layer of narrative, especially in monochrome images.
This photograph, shot near the Crazy Mountain at the old Marlboro Ranch in Montana, incorporates the greatest number of extras I have had on set during a shoot – about 120 all in. The logistics in the cold are challenging and then the execution of the idea requires precision as I want to see as many faces as possible and I want those faces to have a collective attitude. It seemed necessary to have women and children in the scene as if the whole town was watching the shoot out – this would not be a male dominated western vignette.
In order for the concept to have symmetry, I needed to incorporate the buildings on both sides of the street and this is where – at the margin – this location is the best I know because the street is narrow enough for a wide panoramic.
I always say to the cast ahead of workdays involving many people, that all it takes is one person to be looking the wrong way or behaving oddly for the photograph to be ruined. They are all being paid to focus and concentrate for no more than five minutes during the day, but those are a big five minutes. The cast that day from old to young were brilliant and that is why this photograph works.
There is a lot going on in this work – which is why I love seeing it in as large a format as possible.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12 + 3 AP
- Image size: 52” x 102” in (132.08 cm x 259.08 cm)
- Framed Image size: 67” x 117” in (170.18 cm x 297.18 cm)
STANDARD: Edition of 12 + 3 AP
- Image size: 37” x 72” in (93.98 cm x 182.88 cm)
- Framed Image size: 52” x 87" in (132.08 cm x 220.98 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Paris
PARIS
Montana, USA – 2021
I had a few ideas as to how we would photograph Paris. The camera likes her, but therein lay the problem, she is one of the world’s most photographed people. The bedrock of creative art is authenticity and I was slightly running on empty as to how to raise the bar and be different. I was understandably conscious of the fact that Paris has been photographed by many of my peers, most famously perhaps by David LaChapelle in Paris for the front cover of Vanity Fair, when she was proclaimed New York’s leading “It Girl”.
The juxtaposition created by photographing her next to tough outlaws from the Wild West made conceptual sense, but I needed a narrative strong enough to make the portrait work. I felt there had to be a reason why this immaculately turned out and glossy celebrity would be hanging with a bunch of trouble makers in a dodgy saloon. It was important not just to play with contrasts, but to offer a reason as to why? If Reese Witherspoon’s character from Legally Blond had entered a dive bar in Boston’s South End to be confronted by some wise guys, the script would have legitimised why this union of contrasting stereotypes had occurred. I needed a “why”, not a “what” and that can be challenging to convey in a single still image.
I met with Paris and Carter a couple of days before the shoot and we talked around concepts. As we pondered over a few narratives, Carter, who has a private equity fund and is blessed with a razor smart mind, threw in the suggestion of Paris playing to a DJ role; after all it’s her comfort zone. The 100-year-old saloon I had chosen for the shoot offered a rather different vibe to a club in Ibiza, but that was the whole point. I immediately loved the idea – as did Paris – and we went to work.
Our Wild West anthology is now well developed and to incorporate her into this tapestry of composed close ups playing to the lore of the American West seemed to offer opportunity. It is our own comfort zone and we would simply give this story a contemporary twist by throwing in a DJ deck and one of the highest paid and well-known DJs in the world.
We decided to make Paris bling and her famous diamond headphones were a vital accessory. There was also just enough space to incorporate her pet chihuahua who arrived in his own little Louis Vuitton jumpsuit. My simple instructive to her was to play her music, enjoy herself and the rest would hopefully look after itself.
I think Paris did enjoy herself and the extras most certainly did. The end result works because she looks like she is in total control and embracing the venue. It was all very natural.
I don’t think the locals are going to forget that day in a hurry. As for us, well I guess we got our authenticity.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition of 12:
- Image: 56” x 75" (143 cm x 191 cm)
- Framed: 67” x 86" (171 cm x 219 cm)
STANDARD - Edition of 12:
- Image: 37” x 50” (94 cm x 127 cm)
- Framed: 48” x 61” (122 cm x 155 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
The Rookie
Montana, USA – 2021
A treasure trove of characters in a dive bar saloon in Western Montana. The question is, who would you want as your partner? Do you go for perceived experience or looks?
The suave gentleman on the left looks the part, but he could be a little callow and raw. It may pay to go with the menace to his left. Looks can be deceiving. The wolf carries an assertive confidence and seems to be holding court, but he is, after all, a wolf. Singer and entertainer Ciara looks too good to be playing pool and surely she can’t have much experience hustling in pool bars? It’s beneath her. But how can you turn her down?
The answer is to go with the character on the left – he is one of the best performing rookies of all time.
Russell Wilson’s Rookie year at the Seattle Seahawks (the 2012 season) was the stuff of legends. He was named NFL Rookie of the Year and took the Seahawks to within one game of the Superbowl. (This despite being 75th in the 2012 NFL draft). He only had to wait 12 months to cement his status.
In early 2014, Wilson led the Seahawks to their first Superbowl victory in which they trounced the marginal favourites, the Denver Broncos, 43 – 8 in New Jersey. This is still the largest ever Superbowl victory for the underdog. The game attracted a viewing audience in America of 111 million which, at the time, was a historical record for a US television broadcast.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition of 20:
- Image: 56” x 83" (143 cm x 211 cm)
- Framed: 67” x 94" (171 cm x 239 cm)
STANDARD - Edition of 20:
- Image: 37” x 55" (94 cm x 140 cm)
- Framed: 48” x 66" (122 cm x 168 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Django
Django
Montana, USA – 2021
My fear of the mundane has no immediate cure and my commitment to western revisionism probably aggravates the condition as this is a well-trodden genre with no room for being dull.
As soon as I had convinced the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback Russell Wilson and Wilson and GRAMMY-Award winning singer / songwriter – Ciara – to come to Montana to participate in my unhinged madness, we got to work on narratives and storyboards. I liked the idea of building some final frontier sets but that in itself is hardly groundbreaking. Sure, we gave the saloon a name that referred to Montana’s celebrity guests, but that did not quench my thirst. This was an opportunity to push a few boundaries.
Ultimately three decisions coalesced to make the difference and turn an idea into something of which we are all proud. The first was the styling: we hired for Ciara the best we know – Mariel Haenn and her partner Rob Zangardi, in LA. Mariel styles Cara Delevingne and so works with us regularly. I gave her team a simple directive – “post-Civil War badass”. Mariel and Rob don’t need much more than that and Ciara looks ridiculously good and on point. Meanwhile, for Russell’s stylist Alicia Sereno, she did a first class job of making Russell look every bit as badass as Ciara. They both owned their looks.
The second call was to shoot in a rainstorm – an unrelenting one. As a storyteller, I have always enjoyed inclement weather, but I knew we would have to make the rain, not ask Russell and Ciara to wait for a storm mid-summer. I studied the rain scenes from Paul Greengrass’s recent western – News of the World – with Tom Hanks and the effect added such mood and textural detail to Hanks’ face and clothes that I could not remove the prompt from my head. To use rain in this shot was a good decision.
The third decision was, of course, to set the building on fire. This is not an easy thing to do from a practical perspective and it meant shooting at night to make the most of the effect. But again, the decision paid off – perhaps a little better than we could have imagined.
Russell and Ciara make for strong doubles for Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington in Tarantino’s bad ass western “Django Unchained”. On this one occasion, I believe that I can get away with the reference, albeit Django burnt down a plantation mansion in Mississippi, not a saloon on the banks of the Madison River in Montana. It was a powerful and authentic film, but I think this is a powerful and authentic photograph.
A great team effort and a hell of a result.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition of 20:
- Image: 56” x 85" (142 cm x 216 cm)
- Framed: 67” x 96" (171 cm x 244 cm)
STANDARD - Edition of 20:
- Image size: 37” x 56" (94 cm x 143 cm)
- Framed size: 48” x 67" (122 cm x 171 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Persons of Interest
For this shoot, I took the Seattle Seahawks quarterback and his wife to my favourite shooting location in the world – the Pioneer Bar – high up in the mountains of West Montana. I wanted to be in command of as much as possible and with my intimate knowledge of the location, I knew I could muster together a smorgasbord of western archetypes to complement the rock star American couple. I also know the lighting and the angles inside out. It was a home fixture for me.
My preconception was to build a vignette that lived and breathed cinema whilst playing on the importance of cultural refinement in the Wild West. To that end, I thought it would be playful to dress Russell and Ciara in black tie so as to accentuate the narrative. Finding the extras was easy – they are mostly drinking buddies.
There are no weak characters in this shot; there is simply no room for them. In fashioning together so many ethnicities, I hope his photograph celebrates the diversity of America and reminds us that the pursuit of the American Dream was, and is, inclusive.
Revlon Ambassadors have been filmed in many locations, but perhaps none offer the storied past of the Pioneer Bar. Ciara smashed this look, but I soon discovered, she kind of smashes every look.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition of 20:
- Image: 56” x 100" (142 cm x 254 cm)
- Framed: 67” x 111" (170 cm x 214 cm)
STANDARD - Edition of 20:
- Image: 37" x 48" (94 cm x 122 cm)
- Framed: 48" x 59" (122 cm x 150 cm)
MEDIUM - Edition of 20:
- Image: 45" x 80" (114 cm x 203 cm)
- Framed: 56" x 91" (142 cm x 231 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Lakota
Montana, USA 2020
My default position is always to glorify the subject – I am at heart a romanticist. Chief John Spotted Tail of the Lakota is not a hard subject to work with as much of the glorification is a given, bit we still needed the right horse, the right light and the right landscape.
We worked together initially in Wyoming, but I always wanted to photograph him in Montana too. The valley running south of Ennis to West Yellowstone offers stunning visuals and that was our focus. We determined the best light to be first thing in the morning and if we shot into the light looking east towards Big Sky, I knew we could have a strong frame.
Images shot directly against the light need a full tonal range and much of the credit for bringing out the shadow detail must go to my editing partners in Los Angeles. They and Chief John take the credit for this powerful photograph.
Available sizes
Large - Edition of 12
- Image Size: 56” x 80” in (142.24 cm x 203.2 cm)
- Framed Image: 71” x 95” in (180.34 cm x 241.3 cm)
Standard - Edition of 12
- Image Size: 37” x 53” in (93.98 cm x 134.62 cm)
- Framed Image: 52” x 68” in (132.08 cm x 172.72 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.