I’m the farthest thing you’ll ever find from a cowboy… but i did have the time of my life out on the Reno Rodeo cattle drive a few years back. I’m much more comfortable breaking my leg skiing… and hurtling down the side of the mountain and breathing in the cold air on a Tahoe morning with freshly fallen snow. It’s adrenaline… I get that part. I’m sure it must be what the ladies and gentlemen competing in rodeo feel when they get on the back of a bull or a bucking horse… or race around a barrel at breakneck speed. And man is it fun to watch.
Sunday night I had the chance to take my camera down to the Reno Livestock Events center to take some pictures of the competition/performance. Make no mistake, the competition is real as these women and men fight for a chance to make it to the finals on Saturday night. It’s also a show in every sense of the word. Choreographed chaos, a whirring wonder directed by the announcer and couple of clowns that keep the show humming along. Even as, or especially when, an errant bull or horse have to be cajoled into participating in the festivities. What a way to spend a beautiful warm summer evening.
I’ve also enjoyed photography ever since one of my dad’s fellow professors put a camera in my hands in the 8th grade in Boone, NC. But since college I’ve been more dabbler than photographer. Last year I scratched an itch with a new digital camera. Since then I’ve been going out and practicing. Photography is like any endeavor, it takes practice and persistence to make improvement. And I’ve got a lot of terrible pictures to prove it. But what fun it is… to spend the night at the rodeo.
