January 25, 2005 Arcadia, Florida

January 25, 2005
Peace River Campground
Arcadia, Florida

Been quite a few days here in Cattle country. Didn’t know that cattle is Florida’s largest export. Not beef but cattle, seems they birth them here and then ship out the young calves to places like Wyoming and Colorado to fatten then up and killem. So that beef on your plate was most likely born in Florida.
Spent some time on the Blue Head Ranch with the cowboys and Mr. Wayne Collier, the Ranch Manager and quite a cowboy himself. It’s a big spread something like 72,000 acres. Photographed Mr. Collier along with some of his top ranch hands. Was quite amazing being out on prairies that look akin to New Mexico or Colorado but with Palm trees among the scrub oaks. The first morning we met at sunup and photographed as they turned one herd out into the Rye pasture. As we were working with the cowboys Mr. Henry Darrell Grace, one of the guys who keeps all the machines worken on the ranch drove up and I got to make his photograph as well..
Also photographed Mr. George P. Pratt who when he isn’t working out on the range as a cowboy runs Equine Transportation out of Altamont NY and Arcadia Florida.
If you need your horses moved I recommend him highly. A very enjoyable human being.
One might ask how we met these cowboys. My friend Victor Milt the famous TV commercial director from the old New York City days found out I was up in Arcadia, which happens to be the town his wife Kim Milt grew up in, so he called me and told me about all the great people here. Then he got excited and called me back saying he was going to drive up to visit, so we had some time together as well. Seems he has been working on a documentary about the cowboy life up in these parts. My good friend Michael Kravit’s has been working with Victor on the project shooting stills so I had already seem some great images of the folks and was truly excited to be able to spend time here.
During our time here Victor also introduced us to Mr. Fletcher Brown a true country lawyer and gentleman as well as Ms Alice Williams a sweetheart of a women!
Made wonderful photographs of both of them.

Peace River Camp early morning