Far West Texas, somewhere south of Marfa.
As you drive in West Texas, you have a lot of time to view, watch, and think. This storm was brewing during a few hours of my drive. I had already driven through rain and cloudless overcast. As the weather moved east and I drove west, the clearing became dramatic—to the point that I almost drove off the road a few times. Finally, I found an area that just had to do. I had to photograph it.

2.

Bronc rider setting his saddle.
This particular image spurred me on to invest the next three days in a very small area and part of the rodeo activity. The entire project is still a work in progress, and perhaps not fully realized, but this nugget that grabbed my attention is still working on me.

3.

Flag Rider.

For me, it is the gesture. This moment is stopped still, but the motion, the gesture, and that flip of the hair from both rider and horse are what have me.

4.

Bowie Rodeo Painted Sign.

I photograph a lot of building fronts for my own enjoyment. This particular one I drive by very frequently—I love the painted rodeo sign—but when we had a large and proper snow last January, I had to try to make a compelling composition.

5.

Marfa Rain

This is a related image to my first selection.
This was much later in the day; another storm ran through Marfa. I went out in the rain knowing something would happen (besides me getting caught in a downpour, that is). As I was returning to my hotel, I took a different way back and came upon this scene from the other direction. The images were really nice until I saw, on the reverse side, that the MOTEL sign was lit.
Now I knew I had something more.

6.

Texas writer Shannon Tompkins.

We spent the better part of an entire day on the lower Trinity River east of Houston. He fished, drove his boat, and we talked—about everything under the sun. I was with Shannon to make his portrait for a Texas Highways magazine feature on the beauty of the bayou, artists from the region, and what makes their creative hearts glow. For Shannon, it is this river. He told me this is where his ashes will be scattered once his time is up. After only a few phone conversations before we met, we really hit it off. In this image, as he is steering the boat through a narrow and shallow area, he was telling me about a very sad time in his life; his eyes were full of tears, but he wasn’t crying. It was a moment. This image didn’t make the magazine, but it’s one of my favorites.

7.

Texas State Railroad, Polar Express

Two young girls on the Polar Express excursion in East Texas with the Texas State Railroad. I had been photographing these ladies the entire trip, so they knew I was there. The production was over, Santa had come and given everyone a sleigh bell, and now the train was headed back to the Palestine depot.
I’m not sure I’ve ever captured a purer or more honest moment of happiness than this.

8.

Train Barn, Rusk, Texas

This is Kevin, inside the boiler of a steam engine built in 1917. He is working to replace all the stay-bolts and get this steam engine running once again. I spent an entire workday with him and three other men as they worked. To be around such hard work—rebuilding something so antiquated yet still alive as a steam engine—was a fun day and a half.

9.

Ocotillo dancing in the wind.
One of the most fun things I’ve photographed in nature for a while. Each one was different and moved differently in the strong wind that was blowing on this trip.

Enjoy,

Dave

One of the quiet super-powers of photography is taking people places they’ll never otherwise go.

On this May morning, that place was the maintenance shop of the Texas State Railroad in deep East Texas—an old barn where time smells like cutting torch smoke, grease and hot iron. I had come for a few behind-the-scenes shots to wrap up a story. Instead, I spent the entire day watching a handful of men breathe life back into a 108-year-old Baldwin 2-8-0, Engine #28, built in 1917 and now on blocks, stripped to her bones.

Today’s mission: replace the stay-bolts. I’d never heard the term either—hundreds of thick steel rods that act like tendons, holding the firebox together when 200 psi of steam tries to blow it apart. Every bolt has to be cut out with a torch, tested by ear with a hammer (good ones ring, bad ones thud), beveled by hand, and driven home with a pneumatic gun that sounds like the end of the world. Nothing here is off-the-shelf. Every repair is custom, coaxed, cursed, and cajoled. Sparks shower like orange snow. Rust flakes fall thick as cornflakes.

”#28 won’t turn a wheel under her own steam until 2026, but every torch cut and hammer blow is one step closer. When she finally whistles again, thousands of kids on the Polar Express will have no idea that the magic rolling beneath them was rebuilt one staybolt, one curse word, one Big Red at lunch at a time. Keeping a bygone era alive is hard, gritty, sometimes dangerous work that only a few people on earth still know how to do. I got to stand in the sparks and watch them do it. What a privilege.

Dave Shafer
Rusk, Texas

Texas Highways Magazine, November 2025

The assignment sounded simple: photograph five retired volunteers who quietly keep Texas state and national parks running. August heat, deadlines, the usual. Then reality hit—three of the five were suddenly unavailable. Deadlines don’t move, so I pivoted hard.

What I ended up with was better than the original plan.

Two incredible women stepped forward and stole the show: one 74, the other 83 years young. They’ve weathered hurricanes, loss, life—yet every week they’re out there trimming trails, picking up trash, and greeting visitors with smiles that could power the grid. Pure Texas grit in human form. I decided to let time itself become part of the portrait of the state parks. Long exposures—30 seconds, 60 seconds, sometimes longer—turned their steady presence into soft rivers of light while the parks blurred gently around them. Age, endurance, and beauty all rolled into one frame. The slower the shutter, the more their spirit glowed.

Sometimes the story you’re handed on the fly is the one you were meant to tell all along.

Hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain.

Next time I’ll share something completely different.

Stick around.

Till then,
Dave

Five years ago, I dove into fine art, showing work in galleries and committing to documentary book project, “Texan by Habit”. This Substack is my campfire to explore that pivot, blending client assignments with personal stories chasing Texas’s light and soul.

Let’s start at the beginning. In the 1980s, I was a college baseball player scraping by on a partial NAIA scholarship. My business major grades were tanking, threatening my funding. A dorm buddy, an art major, nudged me toward a photography elective. Growing up, my dad’s home darkroom and my high school yearbook stint gave me the basics. That class? An A+ that saved my scholarship and sparked a fire. That summer, I hauled my Minolta SR-T102 and three rolls of Kodak Tri-X film (bulk film loaded by the way) on a canoe trip in Northern Quebec. Back home, I developed the film and pored over contact sheets. Most shots were mundane, but one frame—a moment I’d bet two precious frames on—stood out. I remember thinking, “This could be cool.” That single image, born from instinct over skill, planted the kernel of belief: maybe I could be good at this.

Fast-forward to a color portrait of Billy Carter, a legendary fishing guide on Caddo Lake, East Texas. That image landed the cover of Texas Highways Magazine for my photo essay “Mystique of the East.” Nearly 40 years separate that Quebec shot and Billy’s weathered gaze, but water ties them together. The canoe photo was me “shooting ahead of myself,” reaching beyond my skill set. Billy’s portrait reflects decades of honing that instinct, capturing Texas’s soul with purpose.

So, what’s next for this Substack? Expect images—ones I’m proud of, experimenting with, or even flubbing. I’ll share stories from the road, whether chasing light along the Red River or dodging deadlines. Stick around for the ride, and let me know: what’s a moment that changed how you see the world?

Follow along, and let’s see what trouble we can stir up.
Dave

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