The Girl with the Cigar
Durango, Colorado - 2025

There are no more useful additives to
a mountain story than fresh snow on
the ground coupled with a decent but
not overwhelming amount of falling
snow. Neither comes on demand like
room service and our unlucky moments
make the lucky ones so much better.
Gratitude for the good days is probably
a subconscious product of all the
underwhelming weather conditions we
will face over the next year.
This was the first snowfall on the
celebrated Durango & Silverton Railroad
in Colorado for over three weeks. When
we booked the steam train, the cowboy
and the fashion model Kelsey Merritt,
we had no idea what weather conditions
would prevail that January morning and
the results can be consigned to a case
study on the random walk of luck.
Kelsey shines in her role; there had to be
a palpable sense of sovereignty and a hint
of nonchalance. She had never puffed
on a cigar before, but she did so as if she
grew up with a bunch of wise guys in the
south side of Chicago.
I am drawn toward cinematic imagery
and this is a story made for the silver
screen. My preconception was that a wide
composition would allow for a broader
story to be told. It really is as simple as
that. The focal plane does not exclude
the train or the cowboy; it just celebrates
Kelsey.
Women have been underrepresented
in Westerns to the point of parody and
the series we have just embarked on
addresses that imbalance. There were
girls on the final frontier and many of
them had a casual relationship with the
law. That all adds to the rich tapestry of
the Wild West. There is something most
alluring about women who do not play by
the rules.