Hello!
If you don't know me, my name is Abbie Nell Burnett. I'm a senior at Texas Tech University double majoring in agricultural communications and electronic media and communications. I'm also double minoring in general business and environment and the humanities. I'm insane. I know.
I work as a multimedia journalist at our university newspaper, The Daily Toreador. I'm also the newly elected president of the Texas Tech Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow chapter.
Now that the formalities are out of the way, let me truly introduce you to myself.
My family, on my paternal grandmother's side, were one of the first people in rural West Texas. I grew up in a small community called Cotton Center (40 min north of Lubbock). My great, great grandparents lived in a dugout about 10 miles west of Cotton Center and were the only people between there and New Mexico when they arrived. My grandmother and grandfather along with my dad, uncle, and two aunts all attended Cotton Center until my sister, two cousins and I did the same. Cotton Center is a farming community that has a small 1A 6-man football school. They also have one church, First Baptist Church Cotton Center (practically where I was raised), a convenience store (which is now closed), a cotton gin, a grain office, a parts supply store, and enough people whose families intertwine for generations.
The Pool family, 1933-34. My grandmother, Martha Lou Sageser, stands just left of center on the front row. Emma and Forest Sageser were her parents, and it was their parents that settled in West Texas.
My dad and uncle are partners in a farming and ranching business. We farm cotton, corn, milo (sorghum), and wheat. We also raise a small herd of Limousin cattle (yes, that's spelled correctly). I stock showed (Google it) Limousin heifers for nine years at the local and county shows, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, San Angelo, and Houston.
My sister, Macie (right), leading her Limousin heifer while I follow (left) at the Hale County Stock Show. I stock showed for nine years at places like our local show in Cotton Center, the Hale County show, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, San Angelo, and Houston.
My mother was from the Dallas area. She went to school in what is now a booming town of Caddo Mills. I don't know as much from my mother's side because I wasn't around her family as much. Her dad was from Arkansas and passed away when I was three. Her mother passed away when my mom was 14. I missed out on some stories with my mom because she also passed away when I was 16 after being sick with an unknown lung disease for 5 years.
March 2012: My dad, sister Macie, and I headed to the Houston Stock Show while dropping my mom off to live with a friend while she waits for her name on the list for a double lung transplant at Methodist Hospital in Houston.
Why am I telling you all this? Because it helps explain where I came from, where I am now, and where I want to be with photography.
I grew up in agriculture. Everything in our lives was touched by it. However, I felt like I was made for the city life and traveling. I started out by going to multiple summer camps as a kid, and once, my family went to San Francisco to visit my aunt and uncle. The summer before my mom passed, I even went to Paris on a mission trip. The travel bug really bit me, but my first real independent traveling experience was when I went to New York City the following summer.
After my mom passed away in September of 2012, I dedicated the next year to posting one picture on Instagram every day and applied a Biblical aspect to whatever it was that I took a picture of. Eventually, my skills grew and I discovered a real interest in photography. Come March of that year, I received an invitation to study at Pratt Institute in their summer pre-college program for creative writing. I had shown interest in writing while signing up for an ACT test. However, when I got the invitation from Pratt, they listed all the other options that one could study while there. And in that year, they were offering a brand new "digital photography" option. My dad knew that I had an interest and a growing talent in photography. He said this trip could really see whether I wanted to continue this passion or if it was just a fun hobby. So I went to New York City, and it changed my life. There was no question in what my I wanted for my future.
Photography + travel. That's what I wanted. In the following years, I traveled to San Francisco, Miami, Scotland and Northern Ireland (these two were studying abroad at Tech.) They were the big trips. Smaller ones include Big Bend Ranch State Park, TX, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, NM, Lousiville KY, and Phoenix, AZ.
That "test" trip to Pratt at NYC to see if this was for me became a full on passion and pursuit.
Fall, 2014: I came to Texas Tech majoring in agricultural communications. Remember, I didn't want anything to do with agriculture. However, the school was offering scholarships and I was used to being around these kinds of people. If I wanted to change majors later on, I would.
What happened is that the disinterest I had for agriculture gradually became interesting. I took natural resource management and horticulture classes. I spent my time around other people passionate about agriculture. One of my photography professors who's had a huge impact on my life received his undergraduate degree in agricultural communications. These people educated me on what I was trying to leave and as a result, I am a bigger advocate now that I have ever been in my life.
So, you see, in my portfolio, there's a lot of city work, but there's also been a growing body of landscape and agricultural work. That's where I want to go. I want to be a storyteller of sustainable agriculture and protection of our environment through photography. What I once was trying to get away from, I can't get enough of. I've come full circle.
I wish I could thank my great great grandparents for deciding to settle in West Texas. They crafted my story purely based on geography and trade.
This world needs more agricultural and environmental advocates, communicators, and storytellers. I hope to live up to that expectation, and I would implore you to discover it yourself and become one too.
(Above) A history and documentation of my photography skills and my life growing up in agriculture.