Benjamin – The beauty of Texas never ceases to amaze and impress. The sunsets in El Paso, the majesty of El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains, the terrain of the Big Bend, and the Texas State Bison Herd roaming Caprock Canyon are just a few of the greatest sites across the state.
These spots and many more should be on every Texan’s bucket list, but for those who haven’t gotten a chance to visit some of the Lone Star State’s more scenic areas, photographer Wyman Meinzer has got you covered. “I know what I want out of life, out of my images, and it’s a good feeling to finally get to this point,” said Meinzer, who has had a long career shooting some incredible scenes across the state since 70’s.
Meinzer’s passion for photographing nature all started with a love for the outdoors as a boy in Benjamin, Texas. “Being raised on the ranch out here, my dad was a foreman on a 27,000-acre ranch east of Benjamin, and I hunted all the time,” said Meinzer. “I mean, that was my first love, hunting. Hunting and archeology and paleontology. I loved to look for bones, look for Indian artifacts, but mostly I just loved to hunt.”
That love turned into a passion that he lived. “I decided that I wanted to just totally immerse myself in hunting, seven days a week, 30 days a month,” said Meinzer. “All winter long I wanted to hunt, and so I moved into a little half dugout shack on the Pitchfork Ranch, and that’s what I did for four, actually, I lived there for three winters and I did it two more winters after that, but I worked out of Benjamin and ran trap lines, 150 mile trap lines. I mean, we’re talking about making a living with a rifle and steel trap. Some of the greatest times of my life.”
When Meinzer made it to college, he naturally studied wildlife management and that opened the door to a new kind of way to bag his prey; photography. “The interest began when I was at Tech, when I received a grant to conduct research on coyotes, to study the food dietary habits of coyotes in Rolling Planes of Texas,” said Meinzer. “My major professor said ‘you need to document some of this stuff that you’re doing.’ I would shoot coyotes and eviscerate them and find out exactly how much different species are in their stomachs, what percentages, and so he loaned me a camera and I went, whoa, I like this, this is cool.”
It didn’t take long for Meinzer to get his pictures published. “In 1974, I was out there and running a line on the backside of a pasture called J2, and I caught this coyote, and there was something about it and I pulled out a camera and with a 50 millimeter lens, and that coyote, he was like, ‘I know I’m going down, but I’m going to take you with me if I can,’” said Meinzer. “And I was really mesmerized by that, and so I got down low and I took the picture of him and little did I know that in the future it would be published in Texas Monthly and selected as one of the best 100 pictures ever published in Texas Monthly. And I had no experience with photography. I had no training, no schooling on photography, it’s just stuff I picked up.”
As he grew in his skill and knowledge, there wasn’t anything Meinzer wouldn’t do to get the perfect shot. “I’m a pilot, private pilot, have been since 1977, and I used to shoot aerials just by flying the plane, taking the door off and flying the plane with my knees and shooting out the door,” said Meinzer.
Despite the mesmerizing beauty of his landscape photos, Meinzer’s true love is wildlife. “That is the hardest photography of all,” said Meinzer. “I have a photograph of grizzly bear in Alaska, moose, caribou. I’ve photographed stone sheep in the Yukon, and nothing can compare with the difficulty of getting a great predator image because they’re so elusive, they’re so aware of their surroundings, and you have to really know what you’re doing in order to get a really top-notch image of a coyote. You can’t hate predators and love nature, they’re intertwined. There’s this fantastic coyote with this look on its face, it’s just like, wow, that defines the whole personality of a coyote.”
From hiding out in blinds made of earth to sitting completely still for hours at a time, taking the perfect picture requires patience, tenacity, and being ready for that split second moment to capture awe. “Back in the eighties it was a snowy day and I was bored with being here, and I thought, ‘I’m just going to go out and try to get some photographs’, so I went to Prairie Dog Town and there were burrowing owls everywhere, and so the wind was blowing, it was overcast, it was just a miserable day, and I saw a little burrowing owl hiding behind a mountain of snow,” said Meinzer. “So I crawled out of the pickup with a 500 millimeter Canon F4.5 lens, with a Canon F-1N, with a Kodachrome 64, and I crawled on my stomach through the snow and I got that photograph, and that is probably one of the more memorable shots.”
Although it may seem like Meinzer has captured everything there is to be seen in Texas, there are still a few projects that he never tires of chasing. “There’s always going to be something,” said Meinzer. “Weather related. I’m not a tornado chaser, I’m not a big storm chaser, but I love sky shots. I get all the sky shots I need right around here. I mean, you get the big frontal systems coming off the Llano Estacado and they start really churning, getting energized right about here, and you get some fantastic sky shots. I’ve done two sky books. I really don’t need to do another one, but I never tire of shooting skies.”
In 1997, Meinzer was named the official state Photographer of Texas. “I’ve been very lucky because I never held down a steady job, not one time,” said Meinzer. “All the jobs I’ve had were just interim jobs and I worked for one thing, and that was to be a photographer.”
Over the years he’s released 30 books of his stunning photographs. Many of the places he’s been able to capture aren’t open to just anyone with a camera. “I try to go on private land holdings that protect very special places, canyons, old ruins dating back to the 1800s, 1700s, that the average person will never get to see,” said Meinzer. “Through my imagery, I offer that to the viewing public. That’s what I want to continue doing.”
As for what’s next in his career, Meinzer plans to just keep doing what has always worked for him. “I just keep my options open,” said Meinzer. “I’ve shot a lot of stuff. I’ve done this for over 40 years. I know there’s something out there, I’m just waiting for it. I’m just waiting for the right moment, and I’ll be prepared for it when it gets here.”