{"id":811304,"date":"2026-10-23T09:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811304\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:42:13","slug":"this-atmospheric-photo-shot-on-a-medium-format-film-camera-opens-a-window-onto-the-identity-history-and-resilience-of-women-in-traditional-mexican-american-horsemanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811304\/","title":{"rendered":"This atmospheric photo shot on a medium-format film camera opens a window onto the identity, history and resilience of women in traditional Mexican-American horsemanship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor<\/a>, who clicked the shutter.<\/p>\n

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Recently, O\u2019Connor\u2019s image was selected by the photography platform VSCO to feature in The Fifty<\/a>. An ongoing project, The Fifty celebrates 50 photographers, one from each state of the US, displaying an image from each on a billboard in their home state.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromDigital Camera World<\/p>\n

Chosen from over 13,000 entries, O’Connor’s frame will soon appear on a billboard in Colorado, where she resides.<\/p>\n

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\"Traditional
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Yamilex and Naiomy, two escaramuzas, pose for a portrait while a third, Katie, lunges her horse in the background. From Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home by Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor (Image credit: Constance Jaeggi O’Connor)<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor’s gear and settings<\/p>\n

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Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor has used a Contax 645 120mm film camera along with an 80mm and 35mm prime lens for her project Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home. While she opts for film rated ISO 400 by the manufacturer, she typically set her in-camera ISO setting to 200 for richer, more colorful images. <\/p>\n

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\"Portrait
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Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor is a Swiss-born equestrian photographer who resides and works between Fort Worth, Texas, London, UK, and Denver, Colorado (Image credit: Constance Jaeggi O’Connor)<\/p>\n

The photographer captured the scene near Nampa, Idaho, while photographing the Reinas Del Valle (Queens of the Valley) escaramuza, an all-female Mexican equestrian tradition in which riders perform intricate, high-speed maneuvers on horseback while riding sidesaddle.<\/p>\n

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As the sun hung low, creating a soft, warm light, and the stamping hooves kicked up dust that filled the smoky air, she framed the shot.<\/p>\n

Shooting on a Contax 645, a medium-format<\/a> autofocus SLR film camera, O\u2019Connor rated her Fujifilm<\/a> Pro 400H at ISO 200 in-camera and opted for a slower shutter speed to capture what she described as the \u201cideal\u201d conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was probably the best day of photographing of the entire project \u2013 which I worked on over the course of two years \u2013 and it was in part because of the light,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

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\"Escaramuza.\"
\n<\/p>\n

From Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home by Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor (Image credit: Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor)<\/p>\n

The project had developed from an exhibition commission, Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home<\/a>, previously on display at the National Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. \u201cI was certainly interested at first because of the beauty of these women\u2019s attire, and the spectacle of their performances,\u201d said O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

But interviews with riders revealed a more complex story about identity, belonging and gender inequality within charrer\u00eda \u2013 Mexico\u2019s overarching national horseback tradition and sport.<\/p>\n

Rooted in the image of the charro, a male horseback rancher, the tradition became a cornerstone of Mexican identity, with traits like bravery, dominance over animals and fearless bravado treated as badges of machismo.<\/p>\n

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\"Escaramuza.\"
\n<\/p>\n

From Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home by Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor (Image credit: Constance Jaeggi O\u2019Connor)<\/p>\n

However, O\u2019Connor\u2019s travels across the US, interviewing and photographing escaramuzas, revealed the all-female branch of charrer\u00eda \u201cpushing back\u201d against machismo. \u201cI realized what a complex and layered story this was, one that I really felt the need to help to tell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The photographer hopes that, by being featured in The Fifty, her image will help tell the story of escaramuza and how these women are redefining the Mexican charreria tradition, albeit north of the border in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking on this project opened up a whole new world to me, and helped me understand a culture and a tradition that I hope more people are able to discover thanks to this work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s Seb Oakley, our analogue expert\u2019s pick of the best film cameras<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter As Yamilex and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-811304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}