Doing The Heavy Lifting: Barrett Sweger's Rural Portraits

PHOTOGRAPHY Barrett Sweger

Through his work as a photographer, Barrett Sweger captures the long-standing and obscure practices of beauty pageants in rural Texas. Living in New York but growing up in Lake Tahoe, Sweger’s work draws its strength by making a return to rural America—highlighting the small, mundane interactions that are too often dismissed. For this series, Sweger captures a high school’s weightlifting competition in Sweetwater, Texas and the awkward vulnerabilities of teenage years.