Buckeye, Arizona.

This week, Patti Moed asks us to “Capture nature, people, objects, or animals on the move. You can read Patti’s entire challenge post here. Coincidently, I am gathering action images for an upcoming blog post on my “Travel Tuesday” posts, a review of how I use my Nikon D500 for action shots, one of its best capabilities. In the shot above, a barrel racer in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association rounds a barrel on her way to the finish line.

For this challenge, I’ve decided to feature a handful of action images captured at the rodeo. The D500’s capture rate makes it easy to catch specific moments as in the above shot where the bull’s four feet are all in the air. You can read my review of the D500 for action shots on September 11 if you’d like to see action shots in other venues.

Having access to high speed, almost video, frame capability brings out something that you might not otherwise notice. In the shot of the team ropers, for example, I noticed that the two horses were in synchronous step. Other images of other teams at work showed a similar characteristic. By coincidence, a team roper is a member of our hiking club. I mentioned that I noticed the horses apparent choreography and asked if the horses are trained to do that. His comment is that they synchronize naturally, no training necessary.

My final image for this series is of a young “mutton buster”. Sheep riding is open to those young ones who are typically between the ages of 4 and 7. While it looks like the young man is merely hugging a sheep, he’s actually hanging on with all his might and the sheep is in high speed transit across the arena.

John Steiner