08/29/2026
PRESS RELEASE
Randall Ball’s La Gardiane de Camargue Selected for Decode Gallery’s “UNPOSED” Exhibition
TUCSON, Arizona — August 29, 2026 — Fine art and wildlife photographer Randall Ball has been selected for Decode Gallery’s upcoming “UNPOSED” photography exhibition with his black-and-white photograph, La Gardiane de Camargue.
Created in the wetlands of the Camargue in southern France, the photograph captures a gardiane, a female member of the region’s traditional mounted herding culture, riding within a herd of Camargue horses as they move through shallow water.
The gardians of the Camargue are mounted cattle and horse herders whose working traditions have long been tied to the region’s ranches, marshes, white horses and black Camargue bulls. Often compared to cowboys, gardians remain one of the most recognizable parts of Camargue culture. While the tradition was historically dominated by men, women also ride and work within that culture and are known as gardianes.
In La Gardiane de Camargue, the rider is not separated from the herd or presented formally to the camera. She is almost lost within the horses, visible only between their bodies as the herd advances through water and mud. The moment was neither staged nor directed.
That unplanned quality makes the photograph particularly suited to UNPOSED, an exhibition centered on photography made outside the conventions of the posed image.
The black-and-white treatment removes the familiar color associated with the Camargue and shifts attention toward movement, texture and the relationship between horse and rider. Water breaks beneath the animals’ hooves, manes move in the wind, and the gardiane appears briefly through the center of the herd.
“What interested me was that she never became the obvious subject of the photograph. She was part of the herd, almost disappearing into it. The horses were moving toward me, water and mud were flying, and for a moment everything aligned. There was nothing to direct. I just had to see it and make the frame.”
— Randall Ball
La Gardiane de Camargue will be exhibited as part of Decode Gallery’s UNPOSED photography exhibition in Tucson, Arizona.
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 3, 2026
Time: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Decode Gallery
314 South Convent Avenue
Tucson, Arizona 85701
About the Photograph
Title: La Gardiane de Camargue
Photographer: Randall Ball
Location: Camargue, France
Medium: Black-and-white photography
The exhibition brings together photographs built around unscripted moments, where observation, timing and circumstance take the place of deliberate posing. La Gardiane de Camargue approaches that idea through a working tradition that still belongs to the landscape in which it developed.
