High Desert Ranching Through A Photographer's Lens

Published August 7, 2015 at 8:57 PM PDT

The Twin Springs Ranch near the edge of Nevada's Great Basin has been in the hands of one family for four generations.

Anna Fallini has dealt with winters of 10-foot snows, severe droughts, and even people wondering around her family’s property looking for space creatures.

Fallini and her husband, Ty Berg, have helped keep Twin Springs Ranch thriving under some of the toughest conditions.

“It’s tough even on a good year,” Berg said.

Despite the hard work needed to keep the ranch going, Fallini, who has a degree in engineering from CalPoly, said she returned to the ranch for the lifestyle.

“Being able to be outside every day, being able to do something different is key to my happiness,” she said, “It is so rewarding. There is something at the end of the day where you’ve produced something, you’ve created something to feed the American people.”

Fallini and her two sisters are the fourth generation of ranchers who work about 1,000 square miles on the eastern edge of Nevada’s Great Basin.

Courtesy: Jeff Scheid

Her son Giovanni Berg is part of a fifth generation that will decide the future of Twin Springs Ranch.

But now the Fallini’s family story is on display at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City in an exhibit by Las Vegas Review-Journal photographer Jeff Scheid.

“As soon as I walked into their home, I was just in awe just seeing the Fallini family photo history on the walls,” Scheid explained.

The photographer said it took sometime for him to build trust with the family but they eventually allowed him to take pictures at the ranch.

“I shot in black and white just because I wanted to show the contrast and the dust and the smoke and just giving you the sense of detail of what it’s like out there,” Scheid said.