Two young Apache men identified by the image inscription as "Sierra Blanco Bucks" occupy a studio-constructed desert setting in this albumen cabinet card by D. A. Markey, Photo. Artist. The composition and dress place the image in the 1880s, a period of sustained photographic documentation of Apache subjects in the American Southwest. Sierra Blanca, a region in the White Mountain Apache territory of eastern Arizona Territory, lends the inscription its geographic grounding.

Both subjects wear woven headbands with geometric patterning, and the figure at right stands in a commanding posture holding a flintlock-style long rifle across his body while raising his left hand to his brow. He wears a patterned calico shirt, a wrapped cloth sash at the waist, light trousers, and tall moccasin boots. The seated figure at left wears a button-front shirt, a pendant necklace, and a white cloth draped over one knee, with long hair falling loose past the shoulders.

The studio backdrop incorporates leafy shrub branches, desert grasses, and volcanic rock, constructing a naturalistic outdoor scene consistent with commercial Apache ethnographic imagery of the period. D. A. Markey operated as a photographic artist in the New Mexico and Arizona Territory region during the 1880s. The inscription "Sierra Blanco bucks." appears in white lettering at the lower center of the image.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer