High School Rodeo

While my brother-in-law was visiting us last month we took him to his first rodeo. It was the high school rodeo and I decided to make an assignment of it: try to photograph an entire rodeo- all the contestants in all the events.
At most I would say I got 90% of the whole thing and this had to do with simply being human...breaks for this and that. Despite missing a few photos I consider it a a rather successful exercise in that I learned a lot more about the competitions and consequently what are better shooting angles.

There was also a lesson in limiting oneself- in an event as diverse and fast-moving as rodeo you have to consider what you really want to capture: the action, the expressions of horse and rider, the overall view or the closeups. I relied on two lenses for the day and although I'm not keen on switching it becomes necessary to "get the whole picture"- and there was still a percentage of blurry or otherwise unsatisfying shots.

I believe I took around 1500 photos that day...after several edits I wound up with 840 that I posted to my web archive yesterday. They are located here: Artemis Graphics And Design Photo Index near the bottom of the page in the center column ...28 pages with 30 images per page and appear in the order in which the events occurred. (The program was not followed exactly).

The original photos are quite high in resolution; enough so that I generally crop out backgrounds for prints unless people want the image as is. On that note:
Some people STILL ask "Can I get the photo larger (and without the watermark?)"
Of course you can; images posted are for online viewing and watermarked to prevent theft. Prints from original files can be made to 11x14 inches and better. Contact me via email/Facebook for pricing.

I was really impressed by the amount of girls in the events. They are tough! I saw some painful moments in the photos that I didn't even see during the rodeo- and those girls just moved past it and got the job done. An image of that kind of moment frozen in a photograph shows this very clearly- it also commemorated less than graceful moments of defeat as well.

Having said this I know that by the time my next rodeo comes around I will pre-define my objectives and go for fewer angles... images that for me capture the spirit of rodeo.