Sheep season came and went in April and May here, though it will be back again in the fall when the shepherds are moving flocks down into the desert for winter grazing. I try to document the shepherds, their dogs and the sheep every year when they pass through — I think it’s such a beautiful way of life but I also genuinely care for my local ranching community and the surrounding ranching communities and to document their work and lifestyle is an ongoing personal project for me. I thought I had been photographing shepherds for nine years but Robert reminded me that I have actually been photographing shepherds for closer to thirteen or fourteen years! When we lived in Arizona there were Basque ranching outfits that hauled ewes down to lamb and graze on the alfalfa crops that surrounded the USFW satellite station we lived on, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation in the lower desert of Arizona along the Colorado River. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of photographing this subject, it’s so pastoral and peaceful and Idahoan.
