Creole Cowboy

“How do you add value to culture? You document it, relentlessly.”

An artist and creative director based in Southwest Louisiana, Drake Leblanc’s practice is centered around documenting his cultural heritage through photography and filmmaking.

His most recent project, Footwork, documents Black and Creole cowboy culture, subverting the Hollywood cowboy archetype as White and English- speaking while asserting Creoles, African Americans, and Native Americans as those who originally set the tone for what would go on to define the American cowboy.

Highlighting ‘trail rides’, Leblanc’s photographs create a personal relationship between the subject and the audience. Moments of joy and camaraderie between riders draw you in while close up images capture personal details that make us as viewers feel as if we’re getting to know these cowboys and cowgirls in their element.

One photograph in particular, a closeup image of a rider’s belt Se with a towel tucked into it proudly displaying ‘Cowgirls at Heart’ not only catches the eye compositionally but places the image of the trail rider in an artistic context while asserting the cultural and historical importance of this tradition- sparkly belt buckle and all.