Cowboys of the Americas

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Luis Fabini, 2011, Brejo Santo, Brazil

The handmade leather armor not only protects from the burning sun, but also shields from the scratchy bare branches and long spiky needles of the surrounding bush.

Cowboys – the Lone Ranger, Billy the Kid, the James Gang – these good and bad hombres of the frontier: They walk tall, ride hard and spend more time with guns than cows. That’s the Hollywood myth. A new book by Uruguayan photographer Luis Fabini gives a truer picture. Fabini has photographed real cowboys in eight countries on the two continents of the Americas.

“As a kid, I stayed on holidays with my family on a ranch in northern Uruguay,” he says. “I remember the gauchos, the smell of meat being barbecued, the smell of the horses. It was like the world suddenly exploded in my head, in my heart, with the smells, colours, character – the trial of man, horse and work.”

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Luis Fabini, 2011, Fazenda Bahía das Pedras, Brazil

Daybreak at the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands and one of the most pristine and bio diverse environments on the planet, locally known as Terras d’ Agua or Waterlands.

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Luis Fabini, 2005, Estancia Santa Beatriz, Uruguay

A horse breaker separates mares and colts.

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Luis Fabini, 2014, Douglas Lake Ranch, British Columbia

The Douglas Lake Ranch, the largest in Canada.

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Those childhood memories led Fabini on a 10-year journey through Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, the United States and Canada . The result is Cowboys of the Americas, published in 2016 by Greystone Books, and an exhibition on view until April 2 at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff as part of Alberta's annual Exposure Photography Festival.

When Fabini was seven, his father, a diplomat, put a camera in his hands. His family moved frequently – from Uruguay to Belgium, Brazil and the United States – and the camera became Fabini’s way of adapting.

In 1992, he began working as a trekking guide in Peru, then Chile and Bolivia, and at the same time, took photos for travel publications, eventually becoming a fashion and commercial photographer. By 1999, he had become disenchanted with the industry and with himself. “I stopped everything.” He studied with a Zen master for three years, sometimes sitting for six hours in meditation.

“I knew that I wanted to do something more as a photographer. In one meditation, the gauchos came up and I thought, okay, this is it for me. I had no money but I knew I was going to do it no matter what. “

Craig Richards, curator of the Whyte’s exhibition, first met Fabini in Banff when he was on his way through Alberta to shoot Canadian cowboys. “For our exhibition, the hardest thing was to select 16 or 17 images from his 107 in the book,” says Richards. In consultation with Fabini, he chose two photos from each region. “That way the work connects us in Canada, to the U.S.A., Central, and South America.” The images are shot digitally, but with a film aesthetic, and those selected range through captivating portraits, remarkable landscapes and action shots, such as a vaqueiro wrestling down a bull by hand.

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Luis Fabini, 2012, Ingá, Brazil

Pedro Arthur shows off his skills as farmer and cattle breeder.

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Luis Fabini, 2010, Pitchfork Ranch, Texas

Taking a break from branding. For any young man on the range, the biggest challenge is how much he is willing to sacrifice for the cowboys’ way of life.

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Amplifying the compelling images in the book is an equally eloquent text by Canadian anthropologist and explorer Wade Davis. His words broaden the visual information with an edifying contemplation of history, geography and ecology. His writing is evocative, every sentence rich with information, and rendered with style. For example, of the cowboys in Chile – the huasos – he writes: “Known also as arrieros cordilleranos, they are a mix of native and mestizo blood, as hard as granite, as relentless as the glaciers that slowly carve away the flanks of the Andean Cordillera.”

Such words and Fabini’s images show us not the myth, but the real thing, the huasos, gauchos, vaqueiros, chagras, charros, cowboys – the men who bond with horse, cow and rugged terrain, soul brothers despite the distances between them.

Where does Fabini’s work fit into photographic art of today? Richards says: “I think this is documentary work, and this is not a derogatory term. He has documented these different cultures within the Americas, and from that has come fine art.”

But Fabini sees it differently. “I don’t have a goal of documenting something,” he says. “Every time someone asks me what kind of photography I do, I don’t know how to explain it. I work from my heart and that’s why I say I’m a visual poet-photographer. What fascinates me is the connection between man and earth, between man and animals. I’m trying to connect with my surroundings through colour, geography, symmetry, blood, happiness, sadness. It’s atmospheric.”

The Exposure festival takes place at 40 galleries in Banff, Canmore, Calgary and Edmonton, with each gallery curating its own exhibitions. The Whyte is showing two other photographic exhibitions – the tableaus of Winnipeg artist Diana Thorneycroft, and Through the Lens, a museum outreach project with students at Bow Valley High School.

Fabini speaks less about the technical aspects of photography and more about his passion and discoveries. “These are elegant guys. They don’t make much money. They might have just two shirts, but they have pride and dignity and they work very hard in harsh conditions. I followed that thread all around the Americas and I have found a net of solidarity, of respect, an aura of honour. It inflates my heart, it makes me a better person, and it makes me believe more in humanity.”