I meant to come back and congratulate you on your PH Blue for the Best of. That is a marvelous accomplishment, and one very well deserved with this photograph. An exceptional capture of a split second in time with a whole story in that frame.
Thanks for all the great comments, what a great venue this site is to share our work with people that have the same passion for capturing a moment and emotion in time.
In this part of the country there are Friday night rodeos rotating in small towns every weekend, real cowboys from the surrounding that compete for small cash prises after doing the same thing all week for work. I’ve developed a great respect for those that are doing what they love to do and living a lifestyle of times gone by for little pay.
I had been going to these rodeos to start my weekend for a few weeks, when I arrived to this one I thought it was going to be a waste of time- no grand mountains in the background, an old area, no clouds, dusty and very dry. I thought it would be a total loss of a few hours as far as photography goes. I decided to go over to the back side of the arena (one thing about these small rodeos is you can walk around anywhere you want) and shot into the sun. When the event started I just wanted a different look so I entered a pen full of steers, laid down in the dirt (and other stuff) set my camera to burst and bracketed three shots one stop apart because the sun was directly behind where I wanted to shoot and peaking in and out, this shot was not a perfect exposure but had perfect focus and great composition. I tried bringing back detail in the horse in the background but found it took the eye away from the “story” so I left it very light. The image is pretty much full frame except for what I cropped for the square format.
Such a GREAT crop on a doggin' shot! I was so inspired with this, going to try some really strange angles this year on the rodeo shots!! Congrats on a Great Placing in a BEST OF challenge!!
I'm going through the entries, stopping at those images I feel have had the benefit of an unconventional eye and dwelling a little longer to try to see and appreciate what you saw. This is one of those images.
Positives: Great dynamism couple with nailed focus - this makes for a very impressive image. The eye immediately sees the horses and then the cow before the wider rodeo context becomes apparent; it's like the image unwraps itself before our eyes. Great contrast and monochrome treatment too.
A rodeo picture I have never seen before. The perfectly timed instant of the 'dogger dropping reveals what a surprisingly slow dance happens inside these few wild seconds. Thank you. 7.
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