I photograph for a living but not when working with clients I shoot to relax.  Photography can almost be like a mediation, the moment an image is being made is the only moment that matters. Not the image before, or the one to come, but the singular event itself.  The brain is focused, the spiritual house cleaning can begin, and I can get away from myself.
 

With that in mind I headed towards the panhandle of my home state, Texas.  A vast prarie so flat, so desperate, and so full of inspiration it may be best described by the Texas writer Larry McMurtury who wrote of it "a land so powerful that it is all but impossible to live on pleasantly"


Special thanks to: Scott McGhee, Suze Groenke, Sue Martin
All images Carl Zeiss T optics
 

 

My first evening in the Panhandle was greeted by 105 plus degree temperatures. The exact temperature when this image was made was 103 farenheight. So flat is this part of Texas shadows are a rarity and everything is at the mercy of the elements. The upside is when the sunsets, the cooling begins and the pitch black sky comes

 

 

Calling itself "Gateway to the Panhandle" Childress sit at southern most and easterly part of the Panhandle. Once teaming with cattle and railroad business, its now a town of just over 6000 people.

 

Standing on the black asphalt track at Memphis High I watched as a storm some 90 miles away seemed to come out of nowhere.  Combined with the Texas sun, the track brought the temp up to 107 degrees. The heat was almost drives one into a mediative state just working in the moment trying to forget how hot it was the minute before or how hot the next moment will be.

 

Trains are the modern buffalo of the Panhandle and the tracks provide the narrative thread that allows them to roam. Anytime of day in any weather trains are a constant in this part of Texas

 

 

Welcome to the Memphis public pool. Built in 1958 it has changed very little. Managed by Ricky Guy its really a unique thing and unless one knows the town its hard to find. 

Built during the WPA era this the Amphitheater in Memphis is really quite a find. Carved out of a huge hill it sits much has it always has  complete with a complement of box seats each having its own fire place. Bigger towns would love to have something like this but in Memphis it rarely gets used and continues to slowly fall apart.

 

It is very difficult to find any land in the Panhandle that is as it was before the 1930's. The vast open ranges once used my cattle barons like Charles Goodnight are now fenced and sliced up for corporate farming, cattle, oil, and hunting. Sometimes its not so pretty.

© all images and text David McGhee