thelaughingphotographer:

COWBOY DAD

I have been working on a photo series about my parents and their many unique interests.  One of them is dressing up for Wild West Days in Viroqua, WI where they play music and dance during the weekend celebrations.  These are some portraits of my dad in his costume, which I had been inspired to work on after seeing some gorgeous black and white portraits of homeless people on a blog.  As a fashion/beauty retoucher I have gotten so used to trying to make everyone look beautiful and flawless that my first attempt with these images just didn’t feel right.  I totally started over to create more of an interesting character that had a weathered grittiness that you might imagine a cowboy to have.  My dad doesn’t smoke cigars that often but had one in his car from a funeral.  I thought that would be a fun addition to the character but by the end of our short shoot my dad’s eyes were tearing up and red.  The smoke looks pretty sweet though.  In one of the shots I had to add smoke in photoshop to get the right look.  Can you guess which one?  

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