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

I don't think I chose documentary photography; I think it just happened. I was always attracted to projects that I would say are a bit more post-documentary or subjective documentary, but I wasn't interested in working on projects that were too simple or too close to me.

I think this aspect of documentary, the philosophical aspect of exploration and going somewhere far, was appealing to me, and I was also inspired by lots of different photographers who would work on long-term documentary projects.

Sam Contis, for example, is one of the photographers who speaks to me most. Her series Deep Springs is a long-term documentary project about a men-only school in California where the students work with cattle, doing cowboy work – ranching work, essentially.

It's about masculinity and the relationship between men, their bodies and the landscapes in a highly poetic way. This is one of the projects that inspired me and the work I'm doing now.

Memories of Dust is a documentary project about ranching culture in Texas, but it's also about traditional masculinity and the position of the idea of the "real man" in a fast-changing society.

And I'm saying that in quote marks because there's no such thing as real men, but there is the stereotype of the real man, which has been partly created by visual media.

To investigate this stereotype in its natural habitat is interesting to me and is influenced by how Sam Contis realised her project. So having these ideas and interests is what led me to stumble upon a certain type of documentary photography.

Memories of Dust started two years ago. It required a lot of preparation work because I'm not from the ranching community of Texas.

I wouldn't say it was a struggle trying to get into this community, but it took some time to find the right people and to connect with them.

Now, though, I feel like my network is pretty developed. I recently returned to meet some new people and spend time on new ranches. It's still going on and I think I'll be working on it for the next few years.

The first time I got in contact with a rancher for Memories of Dust was through one of my aunt's friends. When she told me I could visit her ranch, I bought my tickets and went there knowing I was going to be able to meet people and develop my network of contacts.

And this is usually how it works. It's a word-of-mouth situation: I meet people and they recommend me to other people. Then I travel from one person to another, trying to make the most connections possible, get invited to their ranches to live and work with them, learn about their lives, their realities and their struggles.

I also travel to a lot of rodeos, where it's easy for me to interact with people and talk to them. I'm really visible when I'm in Texas, in the ranching and rodeo community, because I don't look like them.

Even though I'm half-Texan, I obviously don't dress and speak like they do. So it's pretty easy for me to start conversations and, after a while, I convince them to invite me to their ranch to spend time with them and help them out.

Creating these connections is something I taught myself to do. Sometimes, intimate connections are required for my project because I need to be emotionally close to the subjects for them to allow me to take the pictures that I do. And it's not always easy.

A lot of people are closed-minded to a stranger coming into their homes and taking pictures of them, which I totally understand. But so far, it has worked out for me and I'm grateful for that.

I shoot mainly on film, always Kodak Portra 400, to keep a sort of cinematic feeling to my images. I think this is important when trying to comment on the visual media that has historically romanticized the cowboy idea.

I try to limit myself when it comes to photography: I mainly shoot at around 70mm, I don't use flash and I don't use a tripod. Most of my pictures are taken in low light, even though there's a harsh Texan sun shining most of the time.

Again, with these limitations, I also try to imitate my surroundings instead of exposing them. A lot of photographers use flash, for example, to expose the artificiality of a subject. I try to reproduce what I see, but, again, by using the codes and symbols of how visual media has tended to romanticize the Western and the cowboy.

Talking about technical challenges, you mentioned the heat, which is interesting because one of my biggest fears would be shooting in the ranching community in a hot, humid environment.

But so far, it hasn't been that bad, actually, and I'm surprised it wasn't as difficult as I thought. Also, in Texas and a lot of places in the southern United States, air conditioning is everywhere, so I ended up being more cold than hot, even in July and August.

But the most challenging thing for me was using film and shooting in low light in a fast-paced environment. In the ranching community, there are lots of fast animals, a lot of fast people and a lot of quick interactions.

For this project, I decided to shoot on 35mm [film]. I was a bit scared of this fast-paced environment, so I chose to do everything on 35mm film, which is less bulky and makes it easier when you're traveling with people all the time.

But I feel that I'm more or less stuck with the medium now; even if I wanted to work with other formats, I feel like, for the consistency of my project, I'd have to continue shooting on 35mm. That's not a problem for me because I like the format, but again, I am limiting myself in the way I photograph.

What's really important in such a project, especially one where showing emotion is essential, is to develop the right connections with the subject. As long as you have the ability to do that and you can be in the right place at the right moment, it will be easier to capture scenes of vulnerability and toughness that are showing among these men.

In my images, I always try to show the context, the Western and cowboy context, with all the symbols that come with it, but then capture these moments of vulnerability.

This is the way I'm able to show, like you said, the tensions between traditional values and modern viewpoints, ideas that break – or go beyond – the stereotype of the real man, the cowboy, this traditional male figure.

As I mentioned earlier, I always try to keep in mind that I need to show the context within my images. In this case, the context is references to visual media and symbols of the Western era.

But what's also always on my mind is maintaining an awareness of new ideas, especially in relation to masculinity. Having this balance is more important than anything else I keep in the back of my mind when taking pictures.

I was traveling with a county judge to Levelland, which is a small town in the northwest of Texas, where the World Series of Team Roping – one of the main rodeo activities that exists – is hosted.

We were living in this county judge's trailer for a few days on the parking lot of the rodeo and not far from the trailer, I met Jonathan, who is the person in the picture.

He was waiting for the next rodeo assignment and he seemed pretty on edge. I think he was around 25 years old and he was pretty stressed about the whole rodeo because it's super-competitive.

He and a lot of other people live off these rodeos – they come to rodeos to make a living. While I was taking pictures of him talking to someone, I just felt that he was nervous about having to go and ride.

At some point, the conversation died and he just started to bite his finger out of stress and this is the moment when I took the picture. I was really grateful that such a vulnerable moment presented itself to me in that way, and I was lucky enough to be able to take the picture then.

Exactly. He does have this rough face, though, like a rough country face, and you would like him to be a bit more stoic and not show all these emotions, which would be the stereotype.

In this case, he allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of me and I think this also shows that the way these men are represented throughout visual media is not always true; it's not always how it is. Again, I think my role here as a photographer is to normalize these moments.

The most important thing when starting a documentary project such as this is for the subject to have a strong personal appeal to you. That would be my biggest advice: have a connection with the subject. It's the biggest drive for completing a documentary project.

When the passion is there, opportunities will unravel anyway. If you really believe in the project and show it to the right people, then that is the right way of getting noticed.

In my case, I didn't used to know the ranching community before I started working on Memories of Dust; for me it was more like wanting to live the experience of the cowboy, in some way, and also commenting on visual media and the way it had constructed this idea of the traditional man, and to see the reality of it.

That was also a strong driver for me to accomplish this project and make it successful.