Day Trips

Photo by Robb Hendrick

Robb Kendrick sat down with me recently to talk about photography, lavender, and day-tripping.

For those of you who don't recognize the name, Kendrick is the Texas-born photographer who has done a series of tintype photographs of working cowboys that appeared in advertisements for a Texas bank, in museum exhibits, and two books, with a third collection of his tintypes coming out this spring.

Tintype photography is a photographic process that was popular between 1861 and 1870. Prior to tintypes, images were exposed onto a sheet of glass. Metal plates proved to be more durable and cheaper. Although tintypes were replaced by negatives and paper, the images had a unique quality.

"I started shooting tintypes about eight or nine years ago," says Kendrick, who also works for National Geographic magazine. "At first it was mostly just personal projects." Although he still shoots photographs with a digital camera, tintype photography has turned into a new passion. "Because you're hand-making every plate, each image is unique," he says.

Frost Bank had been a client of Kendrick's for about 11 years, when he showed his tintypes of some Nevada cowboys to a vice president of the bank, who was also a good friend. "It just seemed like a good fit for an advertising campaign," he says.

Out of the series of ads came Revealing Character: Texas Tintypes, a book of portraits of Texas cowboys and cowgirls. As the subjects stare into the camera, the lines on their faces trace a lifetime of hard work, the depth of their eyes shows a human softness, and the tintype format gives them a timelessness. "Each one has his own style. They are very much individuals," Kendrick says of his subjects.

His new book of tintypes, Still: Cowboys at the Start of the Twenty-First Century, was published by the University of Texas Press and features cowboys and cowgirls from Texas and 13 Western states. It is a documentary of the modern American cowboy from Oregon to the Rio Grande. "I told UT Press that they couldn't edit the interviews at all," he says. The result is 12 stories as honest and straightforward as the photographs. One cowboy said of work on the range: "You can't have a problem out there. All your worries are gone and it sure makes you thankful for life."

Photography may be Kendrick's first career, but up until a couple of years ago, lavender farming outside of Blanco was a second avocation. After photographing the lavender fields of Provence, France, for National Geographic, he noticed the similarities of weather and geography between southern France and the Texas Hill Country. After experimenting with different varieties, he and his wife, Jeannie Ralston, opened their field to visitors to pick their own fragrant blooms.

It was a lot of work, but it was a part-time project that started a new agricultural industry in Blanco County. There are now nearly a dozen lavender farms sponsoring an annual lavender festival in June. Robb and Jeannie started the farm in 1999 and sold it six years later. "We got to a point where one of us was going to have to give up our career because business was so good," Kendrick says.

"At first it was like having a party every weekend during harvest season," Ralston says. "But then it got to feeling like we were having Woodstock every weekend." The couple recently moved to Mexico with their two young sons. "It was a great experiment that was profitable and successful, but in the end, Jeannie still wanted to write, and I still wanted to shoot pictures," Kendrick says.

The couple looks fondly on their years as lavender farmers and traveling around Texas. Mason is one of their favorite towns to visit, because of the great antique shops, Ralston says. "The best steak I've ever had was at the Beehive Restaurant in Albany [Texas]," Kendrick says. "It's owned by two Iranian brothers who were stuck in West Texas after the Shah of Iran was overthrown."

"One of my favorite places is the Welfare Cafe in Welfare," Ralston adds. "I haven't been there in a while, but it's still in my heart. I just love it."

874th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips" 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.