To see more from this project a full gallery is on my website here: http://www.matthewstaver.com/in-the-yards/
New Portraits from a ranch in Colorado
The magazine finally came out, the embargo passed, and I’m eager to share these portraits I shot in rural Colorado. Glenda is a pleasure to spend time with, and I believe she raises some of the best cared-for cattle in the country.
Great display in Fokus Magazine
Many thanks to the editors at Fokus, Sweden’s weekly news magazine, for this amazing display of my photographs created recently on assignment for them. I spent 2 days documenting the business of cannabis here in Colorado.
In The Yards
To see more from this project, a more comprehensive gallery is on my website: http://www.matthewstaver.com/in-the-yards/
In The Yards photograph #5
To see more from this project, a more comprehensive gallery is on my website: http://www.matthewstaver.com/in-the-yards/
In The Yards #2
Below is the second new photograph this year from my documentary photography project, In The Yards.
To see more from this project a full gallery is on my website here: http://www.matthewstaver.com/in-the-yards/
Documentary Photography of Denver’s Stock Show
The 110th National Western Stock Show (NWSS) held here in Denver, has concluded for the year. I spent most of the show in the historic yards again, adding to my documentary photography project set there. Last year my focus was portraiture. This year I created reportage style documentary photographs of “In The Yards”.
I hope to post one photograph from this new collection of photographs every few days. Below is the first, a photograph of Klay leading a bull to get some exercise as the sun sets.
To see more from this project a full gallery is on my website here: http://www.matthewstaver.com/in-the-yards/
A pioneering backyard farm in Denver
A heavy, cold rain poured down on Debra Neeley as she set-up and opened her pioneering Green Gate Farm Stand Saturday morning, but dampen her spirit, or the enthusiasm of her customers it did not. As the opening hour of 9am passed, her front porch – turned farm stand – was packed with customers snatching up fresh herbs, eggs, greenery and tomato starter plants.
This might conjure a picture of life in a small rural town, or of a time long ago, but Debra Neeley is the proprietor of Green Gate Urban Farm and Gardens, a farm located in the backyard of her home in urban Denver, Colorado. She is a one of the first to take advantage of recently passed “cottage food” legislation to legally produce and sell home-grown produce and homemade foods from her residence.
Photographs from the 4/20 Celebration in Denver
A few photographs from the annual 4/20 celebration here in Denver this afternoon.
New Photographs: Growing Cannabis in Colorado
It is always a treat for me to meet and photograph a skilled entrepreneur, farmer or artist as they work to create something that has the potential to elevate an industry, transform sentiment or upturn convention. Recently I had such an opportunity, making photographs inside a Good Meds medical cannabis cultivation facility here in Denver. Growing Cannabis (marijuana) in Colorado isn’t new, but with the rapid approach of legal recreational marijuana being available to those so inclined (and over 21) from shops in Denver on Jan. 1st, attention on the subject has greatly increased.
Farming indoors is a feat I used to associate with survival in a post-apocalyptic movie. But over the last few years I have witnessed substantial crops being raised in warehouses across Denver. The photographs below are a few from an indoor Good Meds cultivation facility. The combination of entrepreneurship, agricultural skills and craftsmanship on display there was wonderful to experience. While complying with complex regulation they successfully grow a variety of strains and create a truly artisanal product.
OTR: Oil Boom Country – Bakken
I find myself back up in the Oil Boom country (the Bakken region) working on assignment. The crazy weather (snow + -20 + wind) makes for challenging photographic situations. But the weather and logistics create a wonderful atmosphere for another installment of On The Road. This project consists of photographs I create while driving to/from an assignment, usually on deadline, that hopefully captures the spirit of the landscape and place while utilizing photography in a novel way.
Photographs of the 2013 hemp harvest in Colorado
The DEA did not show up to raid his field earlier this month so Ryan Loflin and a crew of volunteers harvested, by hand, the first major (known) hemp crop in The United States in over 50 years. Ryan quietly amassed the illegal seeds from abroad and planted them earlier this year in about 60 acres of the same land he worked as a boy in a remote corner of Southeast Colorado. In early October, as part of a decision to optimize yield, he opted to harvest the entire crop by hand. Instead of hiring migrant farm workers Ryan turned to twitter and facebook making a general call to anyone interested in participating in this historic event to go to his farm, camp and help harvest. Friday night the crew began to assemble, most camping in tents inside the barn used the following day to store the harvested crop. People came from down the road, and as far away as Idaho and Texas to participate. Saturday morning after filling out an indemnification contract, a breakfast of muffins, yogurt and coffee, Ryan and fellow hemp enthusiasts fanned out across the weedy hemp field plucking the green leafy stocks, now mature and heavy with seed, one by one, pulling out the entire plant by the roots.
Harvest weekend proved to be a visually interesting event full of colorful characters harvesting a crop in the still drought-plagued Southeastern corner of Colorado that directly reflects the changing attitudes and laws about Cannabis and Hemp in Colorado and around the country. And it was all made possible by the entrepreneurial spirit of an enterprising farmer.
I made 3 trips to the farm and hope that the photographs below capture Ryan’s entrepreneurial spirit as well as showcase the undertaking in a visually interesting way.
Documentary Photographs of Colorado Flood
The 2013 Colorado flood caused catastrophic damage along the entire Front Range, mountain communities, farmland and towns along the South Platte River. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, roads and bridges were washed away and several people were killed. I spent an afternoon in Jamestown and a morning in Evans working to create a collection of photographs capturing a slice of the toll the flood inflicted on the people in its path.
Photographs of Colorado Flood 2013
An unprecedented week of heavy rainfall across the Colorado Front Range has flooded mountain towns, larger cities, portions of Denver and rural agricultural lands. I wanted to see how the more rural Colorado agricultural areas were affected, especially those situated along the South Platte River. Floodwaters race down canyons in minutes, but it can take days to reach here.
Below are a few documentary style photographs from my trip through the area yesterday.
Photographs from tornado in Moore, Oklahoma
I spent 2 days on the ground photographing the aftermath of the tornado that tore through parts of Oklahoma City and Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, May 20th, 2013. Below are a handful of the photographs ranging from aerial photographs captured near sunset the day after to residents and volunteers salvaging items of sentiment and value from destroyed homes and views inside Plaza Towers Elementary School.
The Fine Art of Cooking: Garlic
A photograph capturing the fine art of cooking. I saw and photographed this found arrangement the other day with the Fuji X100s. 
New X100s photographs from 4/20 celebration
I have had my new camera, the Fuji X100s, for a short while now and have been rather pleased with it as a camera and the photographs that can be made with it. I took it (and only it) to the 4/20 marijuana celebration in Denver yesterday and made a few available light, documentary style photographs, and a few using off camera flash.
Spirit of a Landscape
Early morning, struggle to get gear into car – last of the coffee slides off the frozen roof. Thus this trip to South Dakota began but all was not lost; an emergency Redbull stored in the fridge replaced spilled coffee, and my attempt to capture a more ethereal portrait of the landscape seems to have been successful.
Photo Essay: Entrepreneurship
I’ve introduced entrepreneur and restaurateur Ryan here: https://matthewstaver.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/a-portrait-of-entrepreneurship/
Below are a small selection of photographs capturing Ryan’s journey through creating and opening DiFranco’s in this quintessential tale of entrepreneurship. I believe they offer insight into this often overlooked process – revealing emotion and risk while weaving threads of the economy, the quest for a better quality of life and community betterment into the seemingly simple process of opening a small restaurant.
This was a self-assigned personal project that has yet to find a good home in print.
A Portrait of Entrepreneurship
I am drawn to entrepreneurship. Being present at the start or early stages of a new venture is exhilarating. The air is so thick with excitement, possibility and mission that the atmosphere changes, thickens almost, and can permeate anyone who pushes into its sphere.
Ryan DiFranco conjured this sort of atmosphere as he created his new restaurant, DiFranco’s. He was gracious and generous and allowed me to be a part of his process, inside the sphere of entrepreneurship. While inside, I made a documentary style picture story that begins to capture and convey this spirit and process of entrepreneurship through the undertaking of opening a small restaurant.
As an introduction to Ryan and this unpublished picture story, here are two portraits of the entrepreneur himself.
Documentary photographs of amazing construction in Williston, North Dakota
Witnessing a crew creating a 32,000 sq ft. building in 6.5 days is the epitome of the entrepreneurship, grit and the staggering pace found in the oil boom area in North Dakota. I can’t say that I enjoyed every moment of this project (the average temp. was 22.3 degrees!) but I absolutely enjoy the wild-west feeling and spirit of the Boomtown, and love working and making pictures there. 
The disappearing agrarian landscapes of Colorado’s Front Range
I used to drive I-25 to and from Denver and Fort Collins every week. There was a stretch of close to 50 miles where a subdivision was not to be seen; corn, sunflowers and cows ruled the land. Today much of that agrarian land has been planted with rows of houses. Below are 6 photographs I captured of those disappearing agricultural landscapes during a drive home from Wyoming.
Photojournalism – farming through the drought of 2012
Below is a portion of a series of photographs I created as part of a commission to document the relationship between agriculture and water. 2012 was a tough year to coax crops from the dry earth. The drought coupled with high heat caused many crops across Colorado (and the nation) to fail.
Hope for more of this in 2013
The sky is turning from black to blue, the street lights click off and people begin to stir outside as I sit drinking my first cafe-bought coffee of the New Year selecting photographs for a blog post showing destruction and hardship from the drought. But first I wanted to offer this photograph, an addition to my growing OTR (On The Road) project, as hope not just for a less dry year but general hope for prosperity and a lack of smiting from the powers that be.
matthew staver 