Buckeye, Arizona.

This week, Krista Stevens asks us to share interpretations of upward movement. You can view Krista’s example here. My original thought was of the many images I’ve captured featuring the Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron. Certainly I have an entire gallery of images depicting vertical ascents. But then, I thought, aviation images? Me? That’s entirely too predictable. Instead, I opted for a small gallery of images captured at a senior pro rodeo. While the cowboys clearly don’t ascend as far into the heavens, their ascents are surely no less thrilling. In each example, the animal athletes propel their riders vertically in an attempt to remove them from their back. The thrill of the 8-second ride is legendary. Some of the participants in these ascents didn’t complete the eight seconds before the ascents terminated in an encounter with terra firma. In most browsers, you can click on an image below to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner