“[…]Karoliina Paatos spent the last seven years shooting poetic images of cowboy culture in the Western part of the United States, specifically in Nevada, Idaho and Oregon. Through her photographs, we immediately understand that there’s much more behind the stereotyped portrait of the solitary man, the heroic loner. Paatos conveys how hard it is for the last family-owned ranches to persist in an era when big companies hold a virtual monopoly on both land and agricultural production.

Still, to dive into her book is to sweetly, if briefly, reconnect with a community that feels somehow familiar. At the same time, her images allow us to get closer to grasping this mythical subject’s real complexity and tragic, contemporary beauty.

Magisterially shot, immense, melancholic landscapes alternate with intense portraits and intimate interiors. The rhythm of the narrative is masterfully paced, drawing us inexorably through the pages of the volume.[…]” – from the Lensculture book review by Winifred Chiocchia

“Romance and harshness is branded in the visual image of a cowboy. The prevailing idea is still a lonesome twenty-something rascal moving from one camp to another whereas my cowboys are men, women and families. Draught, high land prices and changes happening in the cattle industry are making this lifestyle nearly impossible to continue as it has been.

Presently I follow more closely two little girls growing up in this very masculine world that is not striving. I want to see the change through the lives of these cowboy girls. My journey continues alongside them into their adulthood.” – Karoliina Paatos