Born in 1960 in Boise, Idaho, photographer Anne Rearick’s favorite childhood memories are the summer days spent with her grandfather fishing salmon and rainbow trout in his small boat at Arrowrock Dam in the foothills outside of Boise. Though most of her work for the past three decades has been documentary in nature, “True West,” represents the first time Rearick has turned the lens on her own life. Based around her memories of growing up in Idaho, especially those of time spent with her grandfather, the series taps into enduring myths of the American West, as Rearick describes—”the notion that the West is a place of spiritual refuge, of good vs. evil, at the very edge of civilization full of rugged individualists and adventurers.”

“Hot dry days and cool desert nights, rodeos, drive-in movies, root beer floats at the A+W with carhops on roller skates, drunken family fights, floating the cold Boise River, state fairs, cowboys and Indians, picnics in the park and loaded guns. Although I have not lived in Idaho for more than forty years, it is the place I still call home.”

See more from “True West” below!