Photographer Luke Gilford's New Photo Book Explores a Lesser Known Side of Horse Culture

The American West conjures images of mountains and mesas, of pinks and reds, of dust and smoke; of land-as-majesty, unfurling as far as the eye can see under an impossibly vast blue sky. In this setting sits the cowboy, the West personified. And in photographer and filmmaker Luke Gilford’s essential new book of photography, National Anthem, a new, queer life is breathed into this American myth through images revealing the brawn, beauty, grit, and grace of the Gay Rodeo.

Gilford stumbled upon the International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA) at a Pride event in San Francisco. As he walked among the various booths, he heard in the distance “the very specific cadence and oscillation and range of human emotion in the voice of Dolly Parton.” Like anyone with taste would, he followed her voice. It led him to the booth of the IGRA, and the connection was instant. As a child growing up in Denver, Gilford attended the rodeo where his father was a champion, and later a judge. Something about this group struck a chord within him. “We all find our community in some way,” he says, “the very next weekend I was in New Mexico at that year’s finals.”

The Gay Rodeo, is a truly athletic event, with all that you’d get at a traditional rodeo-riding, racing, roping, and more-but on another level it is a reclamation of spaces that have historically been hostile towards queer people, an act of radical authenticity. Gilford found it “surreal, to be in a space that was suddenly transformed from a not safe space to a complete safe space.” On a personal level, he says, it presented an opportunity to “reconnect with my own family history, but on my own terms, without anything to hide or manipulate or pretend.”

During the time Gilford spent immersed in the rodeo-taking pictures, spending time with the athletes, cultivating connection, intimacy, and trust-the idea of a book came naturally. “It felt like people needed to see that this exists and that there is queer joy and queer resilience and love,” he says. The photos were shot on film and printed using a traditional dark room, and his focus was “finding ways to connect and letting the image organically come.” The result is photographs that feel like memories, stretching far beyond the moment of the shutter’s click and preserving an entire world within the pages.

Here, Gilford provides insight and context for this work, pulling back the curtain to reveal a vision of a sport, a lifestyle, and an America few have seen until now.