TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY FLEMMING BO JENSEN
I grew up on a farm and for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a cowboy. John Wayne westerns were my favourite movies and I never missed a single one on TV if I could convince my parents to let me stay up. I wore cowboy boots and a hat and I practiced twirling my toy Colt sixshooter every day. I pretended my bicycle was a horse, even tying it to a tree. I never liked apple juice as a kid, but I drank it anyway. I figured the sour taste was the equivalent of a cowboy drinking whisky so I felt rather heroic drinking the juice in one go. We had cows on the farm so it seemed to me that I was a cool and authentic cowboy, even if I could not actually ride a horse. I wanted nothing else but to be a cowboy.
Time travel forward many years and I find myself at the High School Rodeo in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I am still wearing boots, jacket and a hat. I use a camera instead of a toy sixshooter. I am surrounded by real cowboys and cowgirls, horses, ropes, hats and bulls.
I still want to be a cowboy.
