A beautiful February
day in the upper 70s greeted fans out to see the Tucson Rodeo, or La Fiesta de
los Vaqueros, or Festival of the Cowboys.
Since my college days,
I’ve gone to this professional rodeo the most.
I remember very cold
rodeo days, and the last one I photographed in 2011 was downright windy, making
lens changes especially difficult.
Before the big girls
and boys competed, the young ones came out.
I might have enjoyed the young ones most of all. The little ones gave it their all in riding
sheep. And, the one rodeo event for the
ladies is barrel racing. Note the little
girl with her blonde hair straight out as she rode hard around the
barrels.
Maybe one of my
favorite shots of the day was the lady holding the sheep on a leash, with the
other sheep waiting nearby.
I shot with a Canon 5D
Mark III body using a Tamron 28-300mm lens and a Manfrotto tripod for a bit
more stability. I did use at times a
1.4x Tamron extender. I left at home,
sadly, a lens I should have used: the
Tamron 150-600mm. I ended up having to
crop most of my shots. I processed them
using Lightroom and a few plugins from Macphun:
SnapHeal and Focus along with the plugin called Perfectly Clear. I took nearly 900 shots and pared it all down
to about 67.
Until My Next Adventure,
See You On Down The Road!
Here are all the keeper photos!