STORIES FROM THE SET: CHISHOLM TRAIL

A lot of times, photoshoots are a lot of smoke and mirrors and making do, really getting creative to make a certain setting seem like it’s somewhere entirely different (remember when we turned downtown Yoakum into Nashville?). Well, not for Chisholm Trail! Gals, we were walking the walk with this one!

“Listen, we’re not ‘city folk’ by any means,” Mitchell laughed. “But we really got an immersive experience of what it’s like to be true cattlemen, and let me tell ya, we are not that either.”

We had the privilege of being invited to shoot – and stay! – on the Louden Ranch in Branson, Colorado. We introduced you to Christine Louden (and her words of wisdom) a few weeks ago; it was she who hosted us and our crew for a few days of filming during a genuine working roundup.

“That felt really important to me,” Cheryl said. “For the vision I had for the Chisholm Trail catalog, I really wanted to be in the midst of a working cattle ranch, ideally during a branding, and the Loudens were so gracious to afford us that opportunity. We are always a little in the way no matter where we shoot – we come with a lot of people and a lot of stuff! – and I imagine we were probably quite a nuisance while they’re trying to work live animals, but the whole crew was so accommodating and let us get right in the mix and never once let on that we were an imposition. We were able to execute my vision for the editorial photography beyond my expectations – it was a dream come true for my creative heart!”

But don’t be fooled, in true DDR photoshoot fashion, it wasn’t ALL sunshine. In fact, one of the days, we were begging for any sunshine at all!

“Oh, it was cooooold,” Cheryl recalled. “We weren’t shooting a summer collection, thankfully, but it wasn’t like we were shooting winter either! The models were cold and we were all really hustling to try to get everything shot as quickly as possible.”

While the models were out in the elements, they were also a little out of their element!

“This ranch was the real deal,” Mitchell explained. “It was an up-close look at the lifestyle, and I think the models had a little bit of culture shock!”

That tends to happen – remember the British gal from the Cattlemen shoot that declared the pottying cow was “leaking”?! That’s all-time classic.

“It was actually a pretty neat tradeoff of getting a glimpse of each other’s worlds,” Cheryl said. “The young cowgirls that were there on the branding were so cute – they’d ear tag and vaccinate, and then run over and look at the latest fashion. Grit and style!”

Speaking of up-close look at the lifestyle, we all really committed to the scene. We stayed on the ranch in Christine’s own home, their Air BnB, and her brother’s bunkhouse. We ate on the ranch, we even had a classic cowboy meal with the whole cattle-working crew after the branding! (Also, gotta give a shoutout to breakfast tacos Christine’s mom made us, and Christine’s delicious lasagna!) To be clear, part of it was to really get into character and get the full experience, but part of it was out of necessity.

“This might have been one of the most remote locations we’ve ever photographed,” Mitchell laughed. “Those who didn’t stay with us were a good 20 minutes away from the set. I mean, REMOTE. There was no ‘running to the store’, the nearest gas station was like an hour away. Matter of fact, we almost had to borrow gas from Christine’s brother Richard just to get back to town. No joke.”

It's always something with this crew! (But, for what it’s worth, Christine insists she’d have us back in a heartbeat!)