High School Rodeo

This week had a serious farm and ranch theme for me, with three days of the Kaufman County Youth Livestock Show and today, about an hour of youth rodeo. As I mentioned a few posts ago, it is good to have some boots for this job.

Even with bright sun outside Wade Arena in Terrell, TX, there is not a lot shining through the open sides of the building. I will try again closer to sunset to see if any shafts of light come through... that could be interesting.
Today, it was only good for some silhouettes.







Shooting toward the opening made for intriguing backlight, and some terrible exposure issues. Shooting at +1 to +2 exposure compensation helped, but it was really random for nice shots. Interesting, yes... good.. not so much.






If anything, that shows that catching interesting moments is more important than good light, but finding good light makes the nice moments look a lot better.


From the side of the arena, the open end made a nice big light source, even if it was not very bright with all of the dark dirt soaking up the light.




I like how much angle the horses get when going around a tight turn... much like a motorcycle. Judging by the fearlessness and ease shown by most of the riders, I would think they spend quite a bit of time in the saddle.







I tried some slow-shutter blurs for the fun of it... with limited success. Some riders are smoother than others, but there is so much motion going on, getting anything in the frame to be sharp is a trick.


OK, that was fun.

Don J.