Buckeye, Arizona.

In Patti’s challenge this week, she quotes Jacques-Henri Lartigue. He noted, “Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true.” Patti then challenges us, “Show us images where you froze the action or focused on the moving parts of an image in the foreground or the background.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

In 2017, I attended my first rodeo for photography purposes. I had great fun capturing motion and freezing each moment in time. Sporting events are a great place to capture and freeze action, and indeed a couple of weeks ago, I shared an image of a high-powered dragster traveling down the track at over 200 mph. My challenge response this week features much slower moving subjects, but the need for a 1/2000 shutter speed was necessary to capture the action at the rodeo.

One of my goals for capturing the bull and bronc rides was to capture the animals with all four feet off the ground. I was successful thanks to the burst mode in my Nikon D500. As it turned out, this rodeo was the last year it was housed in an outdoor arena. The following year, it moved indoors, and “professional” cameras used by amateur photographers were forbidden. To use something like my D500 now requires the purchase of a license from the pro rodeo circuit. When I last checked, that was $600 a year. Not unreasonable if you travel the rodeo circuit, but it sure puts a stop to amateurs like me.

I’ve shared the black-and-white version of this image before so for this post, I thought I’d share the final edits before sending it to Silver Efex 2 to do the conversion. It is one of my favorite moments captured at the rodeo.

Even the littlest cowboys and cowgirls get into the action at the rodeo. These youngsters try to hang on as long as they can to that fast-moving sheep. This little guy is probably a future bronc rider.

The last two images for my response feature something I discovered while processing the team roping photographs I captured. In this event, one roper captures the head of the calf and the other the hind legs.

From the many shots in two days of team roping competition, I noticed that during the final stages of roping the calves, the two horses’ legs are in virtual lockstep. Not in every case, but in the vast majority of images, the forelegs of the two horses were in virtually identical positions in each image. You can see what I mean in the two images above.

I had the occasion a few weeks later to meet a team roper on a hike. Of course, I had to ask if they trained the horses to do that. He told me that the horses synchronize their motions all by themselves. They don’t need any training to adopt that behavior. That’s an interesting fact that I would have never discovered had I not taken so many images of the team roping event at the rodeo.

For a closer look at these action-stopping images, visit my Flickr album here to scroll through the gallery. Thanks to Patti for an interesting challenge, and check back next week when it’s Amy’s turn to host the Lens-Artists Challenge. If you’d like to join in posting your own challenge response, click here for the details.

John Steiner

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

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

This week, Michelle Weber asks us to find a little irreverence. Her term is “cheeky.” I admit to assuming a definition from sentences in context I have heard over the years. Still, I was glad that Michelle included the dictionary definition which read, “Cheeky (adj): impudent or irreverent, typically in an endearing or amusing way.” You can read the entire challenge post here. Reviewing my gallery, I wasn’t having much luck until I thought about the few animal shots at the zoo. I was about to focus in that direction when I remembered the rodeo I attended last spring. Heading for my Buckeye folder, I found the shots of the National Senior Pro Rodeo and those plucky kids who rode the sheep.

The sport is called Mutton Busting and is open typically to those youngsters between 4 and 6 years of age and weighing less than 60 pounds, though rules may vary with the specific rodeo. They all start out like the girl in the photo above, hanging on to the wool on the sheep’s neck or chest area and using their legs to hold themselves upright for the ride. Rules vary around the country, some given to the winner of the longest ride in seconds, others judged like bronc or bull riding, scored after a successful six-second ride. In Buckeye that day, the prize went to the rider who stayed on the longest.

All participants wear protective head gear and try their best to stay upright. The rides are short, however, and eventually the rider will lose their vertical position and roll around as shown in the photos directly above and below, eventually to let go and drop to the ground.

On this day, there were 20 participants split into two heats. At the conclusion of each heat, the winner of that heat is interviewed. The winner, below, is also invited to say a few words. This young lady, like many rodeo participants was a person of few words. It was fun watching the interviewer try to coax a complete sentence, (something more than ‘Yup’ or ‘Nope,) out of the participants.

John Steiner