Drug store "cowboys." Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada 1945

Gordon Parks took this photograph, Drug store "cowboys." Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada, sometime during his work with the Farm Security Administration. The monochromatic image captures five young men leaning against a storefront, each embodying a kind of casual defiance. I'm trying to imagine Parks, framing this shot, seeing these young men with their individual takes on the cowboy aesthetic. The tilt of a hat, the worn leather of a jacket, the way they stand, almost daring you to look away. There's this tension between the romanticized image of the cowboy and the everyday reality of these young men. The dust, the denim, the knowing glances – it all speaks to a life lived close to the land. I wonder if Parks felt like an outsider, looking in, or if he found a connection with these figures on the margins, much like himself. Thinking about the photograph, I feel this shared space between the artist, the subjects, and the viewer, a conversation across time and place.