The newest exhibit at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery shows portraits of cowboys, cowgirls, and rodeo performers taken by four different photographers from around the world.

Photographic Field Portraits of Contemporary Western Culture opened last night with a guided tour by the exhibit's curator Wayne Baerwaldt. With two of the artists from Western Canada and the other two from California and Uraguay respectively, each photographer brings a unique perspective to their portraits of both the glamourous and candid aspects of rural life. Baerwaldt explains:

"Each has a slightly different take. From the works of Blake Little who shoots for Vanity Fair, his photographs have a certain iconic Hollywood quality to them, to the work of Jon Bowie who is from the Sand Hill area north of Swift Current. His photos are more documentarian in style and kinda straight shooting from the saddle."

The collection has been building for nearly the past ten years now but Baerwaldt says the subject matter of the photos has a kind of timeless quality that could fit into any historical period.

"Some works are from ten years ago, others are a little more recent. But they look like they could have been taken yesterday or in the 1860s. They have this iconic cowboy look to them and you wouldn't be able to say what era you were in."

Baerwaldt led a guided tour through the exhibit last night and says he wants people to really engage with the photos.

"I want people to look critically at what they are seeing in these portraits. I want them to think of the aesthetics and the styling that goes into each of the models when they are shot. It's performative in a sort of way. So some of them look like old Hollywood photos. And others, where the photographer is anonymous and in the field, look more unstaged and unedited. So there are very different approaches that bring a different aesthetic thread that runs through the work of each artist."

The exhibit will run until January 5th.