"Cowboys aren't supposed to show their emotions, but they were vulnerable in front of me" – documentary photographer Alex Bex on Memories of Dust

Two photographs from Memories of Dust, a long-form photography project in Texas, USA, by Alex Bex. Left: Fort Worth, Texas, 2024. Jonathan, 25, a horse trainer and aspiring team roper, waits in the shade by his truck for the next assignment. Right: London, Texas, 2024. Merrick, 18, cares for a baby squirrel he found abandoned on his grandmother’s ranch.

Western films, and particularly how masculinity is presented in the visual culture, have always fascinated Alex Bex – a half-French, half-American photographer who is now based in Berlin, Germany.

So much so that Alex has spent a period of time photographing cowboys in Texas, exploring the definition of what it means to be a "real man" and its place in a fast-changing society.