Revealing Character
by Robb Kendrick
Foreword by John Graves

Available for purchase at Bright Sky Press

The cowboy of the 19th century gave Texas its character. His honesty, steadiness, sense of humor, work ethic and determination, created as our state grew up on the range, remain as Texans’ indigenous values. In the minds of many, the Texas Cowboy is now only myth or legend, but Robb Kendrick’s Texas Tintypes manifest what is known in the soul of Texans everywhere: the cowboy remains. Documenting the 21st-century working cowboy in Revealing Character, renowned photographer Robb Kendrick has used the historical ferrotype or “tintype” method of photography—and allows each cowboy or cattlewoman to speak in “Field Notes” with quiet candor.

An essay from the vantage point of fine art photography is contributed by Margaret Blagg, curator of the important photographic exhibition titled Revealing Character: Robb Kendrick’s Texas Tintypes which opens at the Witte Museum in San Antonio in September 2005. One section of the exhibition will examine the process of creating the ferrotypes through didactic panels and images of Kendrick working in the field. Posters and a line of stationery products accompany the exhibit.

The photographs of Robb Kendrick, a native of Spur, Texas, have appeared in many magazines—Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, LIFE, Time and US News and World Report—but perhaps most notably in National Geographic. His work was honored with inclusion in Through the Lens: National Geographic’s Greatest Photographs (2003) and his was the cover image for In Focus: The Greatest Portraits of National Geographic (2004).