Tracy Bookman Photography

I am SO excited about this new project that I’m beginning next year!

Some of you already know this about me…

My son, Aaron feeding the cattle at Lasater Ranch

I love farming and ranching. Not the mega-Agri-business kind, but the REAL kind. The kind that produces food that actually nourishes you, and the kind that harmonizes with the organisms being produced.

Recently, photographer, John Fielder, photographed Ranches of Colorado and published a book by that name. I haven’t yet seen the book, but I have viewed many of the photographs in the book, and they are, as is almost everything produced by Fielder, stunning and beautiful.

A couple of years ago, I spent some time at Lasater Ranch, which has been featured in publications such as Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, and the book, Fast Food Nation, as well as on PBS. The purpose of my visit then was to photograph the cattle and write an article about the ranch. In 2010, however, I’m planning, Lord willing, to launch a project to photograph not just the ranch and its cattle, but ranch life in Colorado. I’m working with Lasater’s ranch manager to schedule times for me to come throughout the year and chronicle life on their ranch. My hope is to also do the same on the Chico Basin Ranch. The goal is to produce images of ranch life for use on greeting cards, calendars, and possibly a self-published book.

I hope to be out there during feeding times, calving, weaning, and for their cattle drive in May, which is all done on horseback.

Lasater Ranch is a wildlife sanctuary where numerous species share the prairie with the cattle.

For those of you who are interested in this project and the images we capture, be sure to keep following our blog and our Facebook pages.

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs photographer

Some of the cattle at Lasater Ranch

As many of our clients and friends know, I love farming and ranching, and would love to live and work on a farm or ranch. We currently have dairy goats and we’ve had meat and egg chickens in the past. This is something that I really enjoy.

Well, in the summer of 2007, 3 of my boys and I spent a night at Lasater Ranch in eastern Colorado. At the time, I was planning to write a freelance article about Lasater, but our photography schedule, and life in general, kind of got in the way. I still hope to write the article about Lasater, and will look for outlets to publish it, so I thought that I would share some of the images from our time at the ranch.

Our visit to the ranch was very enjoyable, and I would encourage anyone to take advantage of the “Field Days” they have there to see for yourself what a real, and health-promoting, cattle ranch is like. Andy Duffy, the ranch manager, made us feel like old friends coming out for a visit. He showed us all around the ranch in the Lasater Suburban, a beat-up old SUV that seems like it might be held together with duct tape and baling twine. We got to see many of the pastures where they rotate their herds and got lots of great information about the ranch. Andy showed us where we could go the next morning to get some photos, and told us how to get in and out of the pasture. It was great to feel so trusted on his ranch to be able to come and go into the pastures to get our photos.

Andy Duffy, Lasater's ranch manager, shows us some of the cattle just before dark

I really like the philosophy of the Lasater operation. Not only do they NOT use any medications which are so ubiquitous to the industry, but they allow the herds to start and finish on grass. This gives their beef a distinctive flavor that you don’t find in feed-lot beef. We visited the ranch a couple years before, and Tom Lasater made us a pot roast lunch that our children still remember!

But, that’s not all that distinguishes the Lasater operation from every other ranch. Their cattle are bred for disposition and are “gentled” when they’re young.

My boys and I let ourselves into the pasture in the morning and found the herd. We were a little nervous about it all because we’re used to goats, not cows and bulls! But, the cows were all very curious about us and just wanted to come see what we were. As you can see in the photo,

Aaron feeds some of the Lasater herd

Aaron, who was 8 at the time stood in the midst of them and fed and petted them. What a great time this was for all of us! I’ll be very thankful to Andy and Lasater Ranch for a long time, even if I never get my article written!

Hopefully you enjoy the photos that we were able to get that morning. It was definitely an experience that we all loved. By the way, here’s a little plug for Lasater… you can buy their beef at Whole Foods.

If I am able to get the article written and published I’ll be sure to mention that here and let everyone know where they can get the publication.

-Tracy
The farm-and-ranch-loving Colorado Springs Photographer