It was as quiet at the kitchen table as it was outside the house — which is saying something. Around this time, 4 a.m., is when all the critters and even the night itself seem to stop moving.
In the predawn darkness, with each dining chair occupied by one of four generations of West Texas ranchers, photographer Anouk Masson Krantz tried to drum up something — anything — to start the conversation. A French immigrant who had spent her career in New York working for fashion brands and magazines, Krantz had felt a pull away from the city and into the West. She wanted to know the people who called these places home.
But now that she was here, at the literal table, she wasn’t so sure.
“This one rancher was reluctant to open the door to me,” says Krantz. “I think they figured because I’m French and from the city that I wouldn’t wake up on time and show up. And while we were trying to talk, everything I said sounded like gibberish to him because I have an accent, and he’s this gruff man who speaks in a strong West Texan accent through his mustache, so I was only picking up every other word of his. It was so awkward.”
But after the dishes were cleared, he offered to take her out to check the cattle anyway.
When they finally reached the herd after driving across thousands of acres of ranchland, something like fate seemed to take hold of the sky. A classic big valley storm rolled in. Krantz found herself stuck for hours with thunder, hail, wind and a rancher.
“I could see that the storm wasn’t going anywhere, so I’d better just say something,” she recalls. “So we started a conversation and pretty soon we forgot that it was there above our heads. We had the best time. We realized that we actually had friends in common.”
The storm eventually broke enough for the pair to make the drive back to the house. Before he said goodbye, the once-gruff rancher told Krantz, “You’re welcome back anytime. You’re part of my family.”
“My hope is for people around the world to look at the American West and then take a few steps back and reflect upon their own lives. This place has helped me reflect upon my own life, and to be a better person.”
— Anouk Masson Krantz
Hearing that changed the course of her life. “If it wasn’t for that storm, I wouldn’t be here. I think it was God saying, ‘Look, you’re going to have to go through this in order to get a chance to be a part of this culture.’”
That day marked the beginning of Krantz’s magnum opus: to document cowboy and ranching life with beauty and nuance that mirrors the community itself. To capture the balance between a rancher’s tough exterior and their devotion to always help a neighbor. To record the values of hard work, duty and a love of the land she sees transcending generations and modernity.
Since 2017, she’s traveled over 125,000 miles solo and published four photography books documenting ranches, rodeos and the West. Each has hit bestseller lists.
“All my work has been about this unbelievable culture, the cowboys across the Americas,” she says. “But it’s also much deeper than that. It’s about humanity. It’s about who we’ve become. My hope is for people around the world to look at the American West and then take a few steps back and reflect upon their own lives. This place has helped me reflect upon my own life, and to be a better person. I want to create something that is beautiful and can help us to be better collectively on this earth.”
This story appears in the May 2025 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.