Cowboy Culture: Legacy of the American West
If I sit very still, and open my minds eye, I am transported to a version of myself in another era; a quieter, more raw and infinitely more satisfying experience of life. This yet-to-be-published book is my personal experience and expression of the heart and soul of the American Cowboy (and Cowgirl) of today. It contains my images and writings about an American West that is little changed from earlier years.
Despite modern advances in technique and medicines, much of what exists today on working ranches has remained unchanged. Riding horses onto the plains and doctoring livestock is still done much the way it was hundreds of years ago. Local rodeos are a contest of the skills used in a ranching lifestyle that remains in the American West. A contemporary cattle round-up and branding today looks, smells and feels no different than it ever did. County fairs, 4-H Clubs and livestock auctions continue today, barely distinguishable from the community gatherings of our grandparents and great-grandparents time.
Photographed over ten years, Cowboy Culture beautifully wraps its arms around a wanna-be cowgirls experience of Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota in an ongoing journey through my version of heaven.
Goodnight, Sweet Prince: A Father Daughter Journey
Ever the player, my father was dubbed The Polish Prince while flying fighters in Vietnam. The joke played upon one unsuspecting fellow officer, that would secure Dad’s stately moniker, may still remain unknown to the victim. An entire camp perpetuated the myth and perhaps it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, for throughout the rest of his life, Don Ziemba seemed to perpetuate reverence and mystery all around him. He was, in actuality, greatly flawed and at times infuriating, especially to his only daughter. But he was also charismatic, artistic and benevolent. He was human. And being truly mortal meant that one day he would leave this earth with only a box of mementos and a million stories as his legacy.
The two most iconic moments of one’s life are inarguably the first and the final moments. Of the great paradoxes of the human experience, only the birth process – filled with excrutiating pain and immeasurable joy – can compare to the individuality and complexity of death. My father and I shared these intimate times; my birth and his death. And while we realize the first moments of life as they are occurring – a toddler’s first steps, a child’s first word – it is impossible to predict last moments. I remember clearly my last conversation with my father, although at the moment I didn’t know that it was so. But because I was actively recording these experiences with film and with the written word, that moment, and many others like them, are etched in time. It is what has given immortality to my father, The Polish Prince.
In January 2003, only six months following our extraordinary Odyssey together in South Dakota, my father was told he had terminal cancer and had only months to live. With his implied permission, I photographed that pivotal of realization as well as the following three months of our bittersweet journey towards his inevitable death. Few requests could have called me from my beloved Montana, especially a calling so painful and fraught with emotional land mines. And unless you have been in a similar situation, it is difficult to understand how something can be so expansive and contractive at the same time.
This book is how I remember those unforgettable three months in San Antonio, TX.
The Mustang Odyssey
From the pre-publicity: In 2002 one woman will traverse 400 miles across South Dakota in an effort to bring attention to the plight of the Mustang. Find out how you can contribute to help save America’s wild horses.
Following one year of brutal training and with only her father as ground crew, Roni Ziemba walked solo 326 miles from Yankton to Eagle Butte, SD. Physically she battled freezing rain, oppressive heat, golf-ball sized hail and a 40 mile-an-hour sandstorm. Emotionally she had to master boredom, fatigue and the frequent companion question: Who’s idea was this anyway? A sleuth-like rescue of her kidnapped Border Collie Scout monopolized 48 hours of her journey. Her stand-off with a Brahma Bull on a country road brought a record number of comments on her daily on-line journal (a precursor to the modern-day blog.) A full-body skin rash took her out for a day before rejoining the trail covered in medicinal salve. Four pairs of shoes, dozens of bleeding blisters, countless pairs of discarded socks and a thousand stories later Ziemba realized the final steps of her journey on a wild bison and mustang reserve, followed by a ceremonial pow-wow held in her honor.
Bestowed with the Palonia Person of the Month Award – a prestigious Polish accolade of achievement in conservation efforts -deemed an honorary member of the Lakota Sioux tribe of Eagle’s Butte, South Dakota and the subject of state-wide newspaper and a National Public Radio profiles, her journey entertains and challenges the reader in words and in photographs.
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