!["Mick Goettle," 2004, by Charles W. Guildner](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=150%2C189 150w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=200%2C251 200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=225%2C283 225w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=300%2C377 300w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=400%2C503 400w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=540%2C679 540w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=640%2C804 640w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=750%2C943 750w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=990%2C1244 990w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C1301 1035w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C1508 1200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/3/2f/32f3af08-250c-11ef-90bf-f70662354af7/66636d7568fac.image.jpg?resize=1284%2C1614 1333w)
"Mick Goettle," 2004, by Charles W. Guildner.
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"Haythorn Branding ’95" by Charles W. Guildner.
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"Mary Ann and Katherine Kelly '98" by Charles W. Guildner.
!["’48 Plymouth," 1990, by Charles W. Guildner.](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=150%2C189 150w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=200%2C253 200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=225%2C284 225w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=300%2C379 300w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=400%2C505 400w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=540%2C682 540w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=640%2C808 640w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=750%2C947 750w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=990%2C1250 990w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C1307 1035w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C1516 1200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/bf/cbf4fb44-250c-11ef-9511-0bdfba5875d0/66636e4f76d74.image.jpg?resize=1281%2C1618 1333w)
"’48 Plymouth," 1990, by Charles W. Guildner.
!["Fort Kearney Road Farm," 1995, by Charles W. Guildner.](https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=150%2C43 150w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=200%2C57 200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=225%2C64 225w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=300%2C85 300w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=400%2C114 400w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=540%2C154 540w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=640%2C182 640w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=750%2C213 750w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=990%2C282 990w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=1035%2C295 1035w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C342 1200w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C379 1333w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=1476%2C420 1476w, https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/journalstar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/21/52198d8e-250d-11ef-9b15-9b062418fe46/66636f2663b63.image.jpg?resize=2008%2C571 2008w)
"Fort Kearney Road Farm," 1995, by Charles W. Guildner.
The photographs of Charles Guildner are seemingly unstuck in time — contemporary portraits of cowboys and ranch families that could have just as easily been taken in 1899 as a century later.
The Hastings photographer has, since beginning his photographic career in 1990, traveled throughout Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Nebraska, documenting ranches and small rural communities and capturing the people who are living a traditional lifestyle that is fading into history.
Guildner, who attended Hastings College and the University of Nebraska College of Medicine and has a postgraduate degree in anesthesiology from the University of Wisconsin, has made the Great Plains Art Museum the repository for his photographs, negatives and archives.
“Selections from the Collection,” the exhibition on view through Aug. 24 at Great Plains, features a sampling of Guildner’s photographs that, chronologically, begins with the first photo he shot with a view camera, 1990’s “‘48 Plymouth,” a view of the back of the abandoned, rusting vehicle with 1960 license plates.
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Appropriately enough, the exhibition’s first presented image is “Self-Portrait — Tribute to Wright Morris and Uncle Harry,” a 1995 picture of Morris walking into an old barn that reflects his journey through eastern Nebraska to visit places photographed by Morris, one of the primary influences on his work.
That leads into a set of portraits that includes the “Edsall Family,” which looks like a classic Old West photo (or movie scene) of a gang of outlaws, sans guns, on a ranch house porch. It was the first portrait Guildner made of Walt Vermedahl and one of Justin Bradley, a ranch hand standing with a rope looped over his crossed arms, a saddle and dog at his booted feet.
Bradley appears to have stepped right out of the 1800s, as do some of the backdrops of the portraits including the stacked timber “smoke house,” a real 19th century structure, behind Judy Kay Durnal of Brewster.
Of particular interest is a series of photos of the Kelly family on the Cocklebur Ranch near Holdrege, especially the five images of sisters Mary Ann and Katherine Kelly from 1997 to 2004 that show the girls growing up — in full ranch dress.
Many of the exhibition’s photographs were taken at the Haythorn Land & Cattle Co., a working ranch north of Ogallala that has been in business since 1884.
They include “Western Gothic: Denley & Lisa Norman & Bell,” a portrait of the young ranch clad couple looking directly into the camera, a la the famed “American Gothic” painting.
But their dog Bell, looking up at her owners, takes it away from aping Grant Wood’s painting to its own distinctive portrait of the West – which the late bareback champion turned rodeo rocker Chris LeDoux maintained, appropriately enough, for the photo, begins at Ogallala.
There’s a branding photo shot from a steep hill that provides a wide view of the spring branding on the ranch, “Morning Mounts,” which captures rancher Craig Haythorn in a corral with running quarter horses, preparing to rope one, the choice of a rider for the day. ”Haythorn Remuda Diptych” has two wider views of Haythorn with a horse at the end of a long rope in the gathering of about 195 horses.
Finally, “Cowboy Quintiptych” presents five views of Haythorn cowboys from behind, including one of Craig and his son Cord, presumably the next generation to run the ranch.
“Main Street — Ashby,” an unincorporated town near Hyannis, tells the history of the town through three buildings. They include the Cowboy Cafe, from the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, Charlie’s Market from the 1930s, and the post office, mid-20th century, along with pickups and Charlie’s owner standing in front of his business.
That’s the only photograph in the exhibition that includes modern equipment, popping the lost-in-time bubble. But that is only the most obvious exposure of the ruse of the traditional-appearing photos, as the panoramic view of a one-room school in the unincorporated Sandhills enclave of Ellsworth depicts a restoration.
And, the cowboys and ranch families in the photographs all live in the modern world. There’s a very good chance that some of them had a cellphone tucked away in their western regalia, and they probably arrived at the photo shoot in a pickup, not on horseback.
But that implied knowledge is part of what makes Guildner’s photographs captivating and more than a simple documentary, for the images feel like they are from another time, but we understand they’re not.