Crossing the border on the Rio Grande, between Candelaria and
San Antonio, Chihuahua, Mexico
mother, who carefully and cre-
atively recorded the landscape,
people and events that defined
life on the remote ranch 50
miles from Fort Davis, June
decided she had to have a
camera.
In the ranching family of
six, money was tight, so the
enterprising West Texas girl
devised a plan: She went out
selling “chances” – tickets for a
drawing on a camera. As a
bonus, the star seller was
awarded with a camera of her
own.
She was 9 years old, and
she was embarking on a
life-long love affair with
photography, culminating in
Texas Outback: Ranching on the
Last Frontier her 2005 book that
documents the land and the
people that gave her both
roots and wings.
Texas Outback captures the
last vestiges of a vanishing life.
Her work portrays aspects of a
culture that hasn’t changed
much in 50 – or 100 years. In
Texas Outback, the people and
landscape of West Texas are
portrayed with a clear yet
intimate eye: the work of an
artist fully in control of her
medium.
After earning her B.A.
at
Southern
Methodist
University and Sul Ross,
Van Cleef went to work at
Fort
Worth’s
Kimbell
Museum, where, she says, she
learned more from assisting
the museum photographer
than she ever had in formal
classes. (She would later earn
an M.A. from North Texas
University.)
Newly
divorced,
she
supported herself and her
daughter by working as a com-
mercial photographer, turning
out work for brochures and
annual reports.
In 1988, she established the
photography program at
Collin College in Plano. In her
tenure as a college professor,
Van Cleef says she concentrat-
ed on instilling her students
with a “love for image-
making.”
In 1992, she published her
first book, The Way Home:
Photographs from the Heart of
Texas.
“I encouraged them to real-
ly make something of their
medium,” she says. “I empha-
sized the importance of com-
municating an ideal through
their photography, of finding
subjects that were worthy of
capturing on film, and I
focused on the documentary
style, which is what I’ve spent
my life working to perfect.”
With a trim figure and fine
features that belie her 71 years,
Van Cleef lights up when she
talks about the West Texas
way of life. As striking and
powerful as her landscape
photography is – her 1900
Fence is an iconic Big Bend
image: the famous cedar fence
on the Haley-Brown ranch is
starkly architectural against
the looming bulk of Cathedral
Mountain in the background
– it’s the people of the Trans-
Pecos with whom she feels the
deepest affinity and whose
portraits form the body of
Texas Outback.
In a region known for the
reserve and reticence of its res-
idents, Van Cleef used her
West Texas roots to gain entry
into the lives of the cattlemen,
cowboys, shopkeepers, teach-
ers and ranch families that
populate her work.
In 1995, she launched the
Outback project, living in Marfa
six
months
and
for
traveling to the far reaches
of Brewster and Presidio
counties, documenting the
traditional lifestyles and occu-
pations of her subjects.
Van Cleef believes in the
old-fashioned approach of her
documentary photographer
heroes.
“You have to hang around
a lot and get to know people,
gain their trust,” she says.
“I’ve spent days with people in
their homes and on their
ranches without ever taking
out a camera.”
Case in point: She wanted
to photograph the river town
of Candelaria, but had no
contacts in the small commu-
nity. She got her foot in the
door by staying with school-
teacher Johnnie Chambers, a
true West Texas pioneer who
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