Authenticity. Photography. The Western Spirit.
George’s Story
George Kahrl is a cattle rancher on the Big Wind River in central Wyoming. When in fifth grade, he saved up and bought his first SLR camera and has been taking pictures ever since. After graduating from Harvard in 1983, as a young man, he headed west. He has trained his own horses and those for others, to be used in working cattle for the last few decades. He wonders how being outside each day for over 35 years, 140 seasons, has shaped what he sees in life and light. Self-taught as a photographer and poet, he is most comfortable in nature with cattle, horses, and his border collies - " in a life of daydreams and living dreams. within the world where silence expresses more than words will know, where feelings flow between my horse and I, footfall creating rhythms of breath and life shared."
Artist Statement
Photography, for me, is seeing, holding, feeling, sharing a moment, a time, a place…Offering this to the viewer who enriches the photo with their own experience, and emotions, from places in their own lives. Sometimes, what we share is only imagined by the viewer, but we know we were there in the snow, the morning light, the rain drop, a reflection in the water, being with the animals, or people, or places we photograph. We offer these for the viewer to feel the sun, hear the water, feel the wind or snow, and be touched by inspiration, sadness, love, empathy.
Photography is a moment lived, a moment shared, an image which takes us to places of the heart, places in the world, to lives lived, a moment - less than a second - held in place, lasting forever within our being. A photograph is both what is held in a frame, as well as how we frame it within ourselves. There is a silence in the moment I see something which speaks to me as I am taking a photo, hoping I capture both an image and a feeling. Then too, there is the silence of emotion in the pause a viewer experiences while looking into an image, to see and feel it within themself.
by-george
