Images of the Rodeo

Back in the beginning of January I was up on my friends farm in Peria.  My friends were responsible for putting on a great day for the Rodeo.  So I grabbed my camera and went along for the ride!  I loved the excitement, the pink shirts, the cowboys walking around with limps, some in plaster casts, the boots, the hats, the dust and the power of the bulls.  I was quite surprised at how much I did enjoy it.  These are some of the images I took that day...

It's all about the turn of the head apparently.  Once the head has been turned the steer goes down quite easily, but until that, it's hard work for the cowboy as the steers are many times heavier.

I'm so glad jeans are made to last and they didn't split up the middle!  Or maybe it would have been a better image if they had...

These guys are so agile, jumping from a moving horse onto a moving steer.  They make it look so easy, but I know if I tried, I'd probably land face down in the dust.  No - I'm not about to try.  Ever.

Whoops.  There goes another hat.  You'd think they would glue the hats down with those toupee strips!  (Which by the way are excellent to stick your cochlear implant or hearing aids to the side of your head if you're going to do horse riding, or bull riding!)

This guy not only lost his hat, he lost the steer as well.  Toupee strips, toupee strips are the answer.  Sigh.

I was amazed at the sheer size and muscularity of the bull.  This is one animal I would not like to take on and I admire the bravery (stupidity?) of the cowboys that get on them, only to be flung off like a rag-doll, with the chance the angry bull could trample them underfoot.  It didn't happen while I was there, but apparently the day before someone was gored.

Amazingly this guy didn't fall off at this point and went on for another few minutes before being tossed off!

There he goes - and look - he's not using toupee strips to hold his hat on either!

I'm also in awe of how the bulls can leap around in mid air despite their size and weight.  This one looks snortingly angry!

That guy in the background spent a lot of time half way up that fence.  I'm not sure how safe he was up there really, if the bull got it into his head to use him for target practice.

Air-borne and dangerous!

This very distinctive coloured bull was probably the biggest of the day and put up a huge fight...

To me the bulls are so totally unpredictable in the way the lash out with their hind legs, I was surprised not to see more injuries.  I guess the guys in the ring have a bit of experience behind them.

Look at that dust storm beneath his feet.  Look how high he's off the ground!

And he's still on top!

But not for long!!!

And yes - my camera got very dusty that day.  So much so that I had to go out and buy a new camera the following month!

These are the cowboys in pink shirts that herded the steers/bulls out of the ring after each ride.  The shirts say 'Tough Enough to Wear Pink'.  Tough men actually look sexy in pink don't you think?

Another angry bull.  This one was just standing on one leg.  The rest were flying!

This next lot is a sequence of a cowboy in a pink shirt and his bid to stay on one of the larger bulls of the day.  The emotions, and expressions and movements of the men in the ring tell a story in itself...

Mr Orange Shirt getting out of the way.  If you look closely you can see how hot the day was, and how much effort was required to stay on the bull.  It's that damp patch under the arm.  Maybe next year they could get one of the deodorant companies to sponsor the event!

In my opinion, what makes this image so good is not only the fact that the bull is caught in midair, but also the eye contact between the guy in the orange shirt and the bull.   The guy in the orange shirt is almost in midair himself as well.  That makes the image exciting.

This is the next one in the sequel, notice how the guy in the orange shirt has his hand on the bull to try and guide it around.  Madness, madness.

Once again, another power image with the expression and eye contact of the guy in the orange shirt, and the bull in midair.  Even the mucus from the cow has been caught in the air.

The way this cowboy has stayed on has been amazing.  I'm pretty sure he must have won his round, but because of my deafness, I never heard who the winners were.

Now the bull is making mucus rings!  That was the last shot in that series.  I think the guy must have come off after that.

I have just two more images (hope you're aren't bored).  That I feel are worthy...

Yeeehaa!  But it also almost looks like the bull is smelling those daisies at the same time.

The guy fell off after this shot.    The bull wasn't as big either as the last ones either.  But still impressive how they leap so far up in the air.

Finally - just one more...

I thought bulls only did this in stories.  I was surprised to see it kicking up the dust in warning.  I wouldn't like to be in front of it just now!

Mistakes - and the Peria Rodeo.

I have just finished making some Lemon and Poppyseed Muffins. I didn't cook them for long enough and they're soggy in the middle. I'm going to use the excuse it's a new oven and I'm not familiar with it just yet.

Thinking about this mistake, I started thinking about mistakes in photography. But when you're shooting something that's in action, you can't always go back and fix that mistake. Take for instance my photographs of the Japanese Zero plane I took a the Marlborough Aviation museum a few weeks ago, when it did a surprise fly by.

From The Ambling Rambler

While this is a good clear shot of a plane flying, it would not do well in competition simply because my shutter speed was so fast, it stopped the propellor completely.  The plane looks suspended in mid air!  A good image would have left the propellor blurred in action.  So what I should have done is reduced the shutter speed.  All good, but you have to remember I only had 1.5 seconds to make that decision before the plane disappeared for good.  So.. I missed it.  Part of it was also unfamiliarisation of my new camera and what it's capable of.   Next time I hope I can remember to have a slower shutter speed before I even start shooting.

Very occasionally, without even knowing, you can shoot all day with the wrong settings, and can be surprised.  In one such instance, on a bright hot summers day with no cloud in the sky, I forgot to check my ISO settings.  However, the images turned out fine, although the sky was a bit noisy.  I did probably delete more than usual due to overexposure though, but I was shooting in the middle of the day, so sometimes these things cannot be helped.  Noise Ninja solved the worst of the problems.  The day in question was this...

From The Ambling Rambler

I've just been talking to other photographers and ISO is probably one of the most common things that we forget to check between shoots.  It can really stuff things up if you have been shooting on 1600 ISO and forget to change it back to the 200-400 ISO  range, especially on a sunny day.

But occasionally, VERY occasionally, it can work in your favour.  I had been out shooting in low light conditions the last time I used my camera before the Peria Rodeo.   I had my ISO set on 800.   Then on the day of the Peria Rodeo - a hot, sunny, cloudless day in mid summer, I grabbed my camera and started shooting.  Never once checking the ISO.    I took about 200 images, and because they were all action shots, was thinking if I could three or four perfectly focussed images, I would be happy.  Every single image turned out perfectly.   I was amazed, and that's when I truly learnt about ISO settings when it comes to action shots.

Of all the images I took at the rodeo - I thought this one was the best, but I had a whole heap of others which I'll post up in the next blog!

From The Ambling Photographer

Other easy things to forget is the JPEG vs RAW.  There's nothing worse than coming home from a photoshoot to find all your images have been shot in JPEG instead of RAW.  I've only done it once, and was so disappointed with the results, I do keep a check on it now.  The only time I change to jpeg if I want to do some quick small photos for the web only - for instance an auction on trademe.

And have you ever shot a whole lot of fabulous shots, on a perfect day knowing you've got some great images, to find you had no memory card in your camera?  In fact no memory card on you at all, AND you were walking, so couldn't rush home and get it to start again?    I keep memory cards in abundance now, and I know I'm not the only one who has done this!

Live and Learn.  That's what Photography is all about!