Erik LeBlanc was born in California and raised in Arizona. Before going to collage Erik spent his time on a ranch being a cowboy and doing what cowboys do. After Erik left collage, he returned back to a life of a cowboy. As Erik stated "a cowboy's life has freedom". He spent many years on the circuit as a bull and bronco rider. He never got hurt, but felt it was only a matter of time, so he retired from that life and went into a career as a farrier. Erik got very well known as a farrier, shoeing horses throughout Arizona. His wife of 26 years works with him every day,
With the look of the old west, Erik is the headliner for a movie called Bannock which is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2013. The storyline goes something like this: He left Mexico and reappeared 12 years later after his sister's family was butchered. He came to set things right. When asked if being a movie star would change his way of life, Erik said "I like my work too much to ever throw it away."

How This Image Was Captured
This capture was accomplished by using seven lights; I considered a reflector as a light. The first light was my background light which I placed two feet from the black seamless, facing more toward camera left. This still allowed some separation for the back of his hat camera right. Next I have two light: one camera left and the other camera right at 160 degrees at axis 45. The light on camera left had a snoot on it about seven feet way from Erik, pointing at the front of his hat. On camera right, I had a light with a 10 degree grid on it. This gave me just a kiss of light on his chaps over his shoulder. Above Erik's head, I used a strip light at f/3 just to define a little more of his hat. The key light was on camera left at f/8. I used this light in two ways: one, giving depth to his face setting the ratio. and two, rimming his shirt and fingers. The next light I used was another strip light on the floor. This strip light took the shadows away from under his hat. The only thing I had left to do was use my Westcott silver reflector as a fill camera right.