Art & Galleries
C&I photo contest 2009 winner: Jonathan Goatcher
By CHUCK THOMPSON
When describing great images of the West, there's a tendency to reach for the rhapsodic prose of poets.
And why not? Our landscapes inspire nothing if not grandeur and emotion. As Colorado-based Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Judy DeHaas says, "I think something happens to your brain and your heart when you look at the Western sky in that incredible first moment in the morning and last moment at night. The sunsets in Taos used to make me cry."
But there's an equally significant part of the West that doesn't give a hoot about tears and poetry — a part that's defined by grit, mettle, and the occasional pair of torn and dirty jeans.
As seen through the lenses of this year's photo contest winners, the West is equal parts wonder and work and wildness. A group of riders nervously waiting for Chute No. 1 to open at the Pendleton Round-Up. A battered wood-post fence and tangle of barbed wire illuminated against a moody Montana sky. Three barn owls hunkering down against an Oregon storm. Two horses pulling up against a cowboy's impatient lead through the Texas sagebrush.
Capturing moments like these takes as much quick reflex as it does thoughtful artistic vision.
"Everything is moving so fast the whole time you're taking shots of riders you can't really stop and say, 'I think this is gonna be a good one,'" says Jonathan Goatcher, who took this year's grand-prize-winning photograph. "At the roundup I don't really know what I've got until I get back home and look at all the pictures."
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By Jonathan Goatcher
"I have that [flag] picture hanging in my room and every time my friends come over they go, 'Dude, did you Photoshop that?' I tell them, 'Nope, I took it straight,'" says this year's winner, high school freshman Jonathan Goatcher. His winning shot is the first image in the slideshow above.
We had a similarly revelatory experience when we looked at all the pictures submitted in this year's photo contest. Diverse? You bet. Evocative? Absolutely. Poring over hundreds of worthy entries, we were struck again and again by the expressive drama and beauty of the American West. But we kept coming back to the composition of that singular moment at the roundup. Clearly the work of a seasoned shooter.
Imagine our surprise and delight when we discovered that this year's winner is a 14-year-old high school freshman from Hood River, Oregon, and that his award-winning photograph was no fluke. Though he calls himself an amateur with no professional aspirations, Goatcher is as meticulous and diligent a photographer as many pros.
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Goatcher took the cover shot of this book when he was just 13 years old.
A shot he took as a 13-year-old of a bull and rodeo clown facing off ended up emblazoned on a poster promoting last year's Pendleton Round-Up, an event Jonathan and his father, Gary, have a tradition of attending together. A backlit shot he took of American flags reflected in water droplets on a glass plate took Goatcher six hours to put together, not a minute of which involved Photoshop or other software trickery.
"I have that [flag] picture hanging in my room and every time my friends come over they go, 'Dude, did you Photoshop that?'" Goatcher says. "I tell them, 'Nope, I took it straight. That's the photo as it appeared in my camera.'"
In addition to elaborate photo shoots, Goatcher finds time to play defensive tackle on the Hood River Valley High School freshman football team and defense on the high school lacrosse team, serve as freshman class vice-president, and volunteer as a hospice worker. The week we called to congratulate him on winning the photo contest, he'd spent time installing smoke alarms, raking leaves, and rearranging a storage shed for local hospice patients.
How's that for the perfect picture of the gumption, artistry, and generosity of spirit inherent in every great image of the West.
Issue: March 2009
