Eric Church in Concert 28 March 2017

Country music artist Eric Church came to Phoenix the end of March and played to a sold out arena downtown.  Eric was the sole performer in two sets and did not disappoint his fans.  

I was smart enough to contact the arena ahead of time to find out what their camera policy was.  In this arena, they do not permit "professional cameras."  They define that as any camera with a detachable lens.  I get that.  All it take is one numbskull to bring a huge 600mm lens and bop people in the head.  If you shoot events like this, also note they will NOT allow tripods or monopods.

This kind of even is exactly why I have a second camera.  My first camera is the Canon 5D Mark IV.  My second camera is the Canon 3Gx with a built in lens that zooms to 600mm.  Now, it will never replace my main camera.  For one thing, it can't take rapid fire shots for action sports.  But it does save photos in raw format and gives me about every other freedom in options.  

I shot all of these with a wide open aperture of f/2.8 and an ISO of 3200.  Post processing mostly with Adobe Lightroom.

Until My Next Adventure, 

(Cave Creek Rodeo, then Country Thunder) 

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

Photos from Flickr ... and, here are all the keeper photos!

Parada Del Sol Rodeo Scottsdale 12 March 2017

This is one of my favorite rodeos, commonly called the Scottsdale Rodeo.  The venue is Westworld, an indoor arena, so at least no worries of a sunburn on this sunny Sunday in March.  Plus, it was air conditioned.

On the negative side, for photographers, was the mixed natural and fluorescent lighting.   And, that type of lighting always looks bright to the naked eye, but for the camera it isn't.  I had to compromise between shutter speed and the needed high ISO.  I was around 2500 ISO and a shutter speed from 1/160th to 1/200th of a second.  And the f/stop was as wide open as I could get.  So... I had to watch for grain in photos and maybe some unwanted motion blur.  I shot with a Canon 5D Mark IV and a Tamron 28-300mm lens.

We got to the arena quite early and was delighted to see a pre-event, ladies and gentlemen horseback target shooting.  The shooting made for a smokey arena, but this was fun to watch and it seemed to me the ladies did an overall better job of it!

What would a rodeo be without clowns?  I've always thought the clowns were some of the hardest working people in rodeo.  They are there to entertain but also distract angry animals away from cowboys.    

The ladies of rodeo put on what I consider to be my second favorite event:  barrel racing.  Now, this is a sad sight.  A barrel that goes down costs 5 seconds on the total time.  This young lady knocked down two this day so she was out of the running

This fellow rounds up buffalo and gets them on top of that trailer.  Magnificent creatures!

Probably not a good idea to play "horsey" with these big animals either!

Until My Next Adventure, 

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

Photos from Flickr ... and, here are all the keeper photos!

Turf Paradise 11 March 2017

I spent another lovely Phoenix, Arizona afternoon at Turf Paradise.  This time the attraction for families was wiener dog races.  The special events always brings a crowd and it was no different on this day.  

To the left, it looks like a parade of wiener dog handlers going through the throng of people.  Wiener dogs for ME meant a sale on hot dogs and I had a few while visiting!








Although it was the 11th of March, it was nearly 90 degrees.  What made the visit fun for me was I had a chance to talk to people visiting from Wisconsin and Illinois.  They looked confused so I shared some tips on where to sit, for instance.  I like it up on the top deck... best view for photography, I think.  And I gave some betting tips.  Like:  take out a dollar bill, what is the last serial number?  Bet THAT horse!  

Until My Next Adventure, 

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

Photos from Flickr ... and, here are all the keeper photos!