What Wyman Meinzer Taught Me About Seeing Texasā€”and Telling Its Stories
Jun 20, 2025
I met Wyman Meinzer, the State Photographer of Texas, nearly thirty years ago when I was writing magazine features and ad campaigns for Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine. Wyman was out in the field, chasing light across forgotten corners of the state with his camera. He worked closely with our photo editor, Bill Reaves—who now happens to be my husband.
I’ve been a fan of Wyman’s work ever since. His photos don’t just show you Texas; they pull you into it. You can almost hear the wind pushing through the mesquites. You can feel the dust rise and settle again. There’s grit in his images, and reverence. Even in the quietest frames, the land feels alive.
During a recent conversation, I asked Wyman what helped shape his unique perspective. “Bill really helped me,” he said. “He pushed me. He challenged how I looked at light, at a story.” And he credits Bill with giving him space to grow, not just technically, but artistically. Back then, Wyman was one of the only photographers shooting the rugged, often overlooked Rolling Plains of Texas. “No one else was coming into this region,” he told me. “I saw an opportunity to introduce the Rolling Plains to the readers.” Photo editors like Bill trusted him to do just that.
Wyman’s career started with a degree in wildlife management and a deep understanding of animal behavior, which made his early transition to photography a natural one. “I had no mentors,” he said. “No photography clubs, no peers to talk shop with. I had to find my own style.” At first, it was isolating. But in the long run, it gave him an edge and a voice all his own.
That voice has resonated far beyond Texas. His images have appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic books, Time, Newsweek, and Audubon. He’s published dozens of books, collaborated with literary giants like the late John Graves, and carved out a visual legacy rooted in patience, precision, and presence.
Though the world of publishing has changed, Wyman hasn’t stopped shooting. These days, he applies the same principles he once used in magazine work to real estate photography. When he photographs a ranch property for his firm, Chas Middleton & Son, it’s more than a job. “I still think like a magazine photographer,” he said. “I shoot wildlife, interiors, landscapes. I pull from all of it.” The goal, as always, is to tell a story—not just sell a piece of land but help someone imagine a life there.
Wyman’s approach hasn’t wavered. He still rises early. He still waits for the light. And he still shoots like he’s using chrome film. “I don’t fix it in Photoshop,” he said. “I get it right from the beginning.”
His discipline extends to writing, too. It started, almost by accident, when David Baxter, former editor at Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine asked him to write a story about coyotes. Wyman wasn’t sure he could do it. “I told David, ‘I don’t know how to write.’ He told me to try anyway.” That first article changed everything. “David said it was better than some of the regulars. And that gave me the confidence to keep going.”
Now Wyman’s writing, whether in books or social media posts, carries the same depth as his photographs. His voice is measured, observant, often poetic. He doesn’t post for the sake of staying visible. “I have to feel it,” he said. “It has to come from a deeply personal place.”
One post in particular stuck with me. Wyman quoted a line from the book The Wind: “Will you watch a prairie sunset and think of me?” That, he told me, is the legacy he hopes to leave behind.
And I felt it.
We talked about hard-won assignments, like a brutal shoot in the Yukon where he carried 50 pounds of gear for 15 hours up a rain-soaked mountain. His cameras fogged. His boots filled with water. At one point, he turned to his crew and said, “If I ever get off this mountain, I will never come back.” He never did—but he got the story.
The stories matter to Wyman. So do the people, especially those from our past. He told me about working on a 27,000-acre ranch as a kid, riding alongside men born in the 1800s. “They told me what the land looked like before barbed wire and highways,” he said. “Those stories still stay with me.”
He also remembers the magazine editors who gave him a shot, the readers who started seeing Texas differently because of his work, and the students he taught at Texas Tech who learned to chase the light instead of settling for shortcuts. “I still shoot low and strong,” he said, recalling one editor’s advice. “That stuck with me.”
When I asked what advice he would give today’s aspiring photographers and writers, his answer was simple: Slow down. Show up early. Study the light. “Digital photography makes it easy to be lazy,” he said. “But you have to feel what you’re capturing. You have to think about what it’s going to say to someone else.”
That’s the thread running through all of Wyman’s work—from the early days of Kodachrome to the drone shots he captures today. A deep sense of wonder. A quiet discipline. And a voice that reminds us how to slow down, pay attention, and truly see the land we stand on.
And if you’re lucky enough to watch the sky turning gold in a prairie sunset, stop and notice the beauty that so many people miss.
