In Scottsdale, a Puerto Rican photographer pays homage to generations of vaqueros in Sonora
For Werner Segarra, photography is one of his greatest passions which he combines with his love for people, their customs and their traditions. With each click of his camera, he seeks to transport viewers to remote places just across Arizona's southern border.
With his 40 years in photography, Segarra has dedicated a good chunk of these decades to collecting hundreds of photographs of the vaqueros, or cowboys, of the Sierra Alta in Sonora, Mexico.
That collection today has a temporary home at the Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, in an exhibit scheduled through February 2024.
The "Vaqueros de la Cruz del Diablo/Cowboys From the Cross of the Devil" photo exhibit consists of 57 images and multimedia that transports viewers to the remote world of the Sonoran vaquero. From the reed-roofed houses and improvised corrals to the lassoing and herding of cattle and everyday rituals, the exhibit captures life in the Sierra.
“One day I entered the house of some vaqueros and it was beautiful — a reed roof, the adobe houses — and since I did architecture and interior design photography, these houses spoke a lot to me because they have been around for more than 100 years," Segarra told The Arizona Republic.
The artist became involved in the community, giving life via his lens to the emblematic landscapes of the Sonoran Desert.
Speaking of the many portraits he took of the families in Sierra Alta, he took photos in their living rooms, at their dining tables, visiting each other's homes. Segarra said the vaquero lifestyle was seen both inside and outside their homes.
“You see it in the faces of these people, in the hands that have worked, you feel it and you see it and I said, 'I know what I'm going to do … I'm going to take the entire room and I'm going to put the vaquero in there, with his saddle, his chaps.' They are portraits of who they are,” Segarra said.
Tricia Loscher, deputy director of collections, exhibitions and research at the museum, said that while the title of the exhibit — "Cowboys From the Cross of the Devil" — may seem harsh at first, the photographs reveal a striking beauty in the rugged terrain.
“This is a must-see exhibition that offers a glimpse into a world that is rapidly disappearing and promises to be a fascinating experience for all who attend,” she said.
In addition to giving a face to generations of vaqueros in the Huásabas region of Sonora, Mexico, the exhibition reveals photographs that show towering mountains, plunging cliffs, expansive skies and, beneath it all, the vaqueros working among their herds.
The images captured by Segarra show, without any technological tricks, natural photographic techniques capturing everything from the best landscapes to the clothing, food and essences of Sonoran homes with a single click.
“In this project, I don't use flash, I don't use reflectors. It's a pure photo. It's 100 percent natural. It's an entire photo. If it doesn't come out whole, I don't eat it, I want it to be completely organic. I don't retouch faces, or anything like that," Segarra said.
In addition to the photographs, attendees can enjoy several videos showing how the vaqueros live, their conversations, how they prepare their food and how they work.
Werner Segarra, a Puerto Rican capturing Sonoran life
Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in 1966, Segarra is the son of a Puerto Rican father and a German mother. He moved to the United States when he was 10 when his parents divorced and then remarried. When he was 11, he moved to Saudi Arabia but moved to Sedona, Arizona, when he was 14.
His stepfather was a fan of photography and encouraged Segarra to take his first steps in this world. He taught Segarra how to develop film and bought him his first camera.
Once in Sedona, Segarra visited Sonora for the first time in the 1980s through an exchange program at his high school. He was so impressed by the place and customs that it awakened in him a deep passion to capture the life, practices and environment of the vaqueros of that region with his lens.
It would take him years to develop those photographs.
After finishing his studies, he lived in various parts of the United States and later moved to Puerto Rico, where he worked in commercial photography between 1996 and 1997 for renowned brands such as Sears, Revlon, Loreal and Coors Light.
His success in commercial photography kept him from visiting Sonora again. But a visit to his parents' home in Montana would change the course of his life.
Packed away in a cabinet, he found a box filled with film negatives his mother had saved from his childhood. They were of the vaqueros in Sonora he met as a teenager.
While enjoying success in his career thus far, Segarra said he felt as though the content he was creating did not represent him.
"I needed something that was more mine, and when I saw the negatives and the photos that my mother had stored there, I knew I was going to move to Arizona," he recalled.
In 2002, he picked up his things and moved to the state to pick up where he had left off as a teenager.
"I had to start my business again … I noticed that I could make good money if I photographed architecture. (In Puerto Rico) I did a little for interior designers for some magazines every month, but I wasn't 100 percent dedicated to that." In Arizona, he knew he could.
Working in architectural photography allowed him to travel to Sonora five or six times a year, to be able to dedicate himself to his life project: documenting the lives of vaqueros through his lens.
He first began with landscapes, then took photographs of a vaquero in a room, and before long, he was taking photos of several generations of vaqueros.
To this day, he continues traveling into the mountains to find those places where technology has yet to reach.
"It's a lot of work, a lot of traveling, a lot of talking to people, and I think I'm going to continue photographing, because I have photos from 1982 with sons and daughters, and now I have them of them grown up with their families," Segarra said.
Ever since the early 2000s, Segarra has been a resident of Phoenix, where he lives with his wife, Ellie, and his twins, Iggy and Milana.
Vaqueros de la Cruz del Diablo Exhibit
Details: Exhibition on display through February 2024. Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, 3830 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale. https://scottsdalemuseumwest.org/
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Werner Segarra's Scottsdale exhibit pays tribute to Sonora vaqueros
