Scottsdale Parada del Sol Rodeo 8 March 2020

The Scottsdale Parada del Sol rodeo finals was held at Westworld on Sunday 8 March.  The all-around top cowboy was JC Mortensen for bareback riding and bull riding. Here are the full results from the rodeo finals. 


Events included bareback riding, steer wrestling, team roping, saddle bronc riding, tie-down roping, the ladies of barrel racing, and bull riding.  In addition to the rodeo clown, lady trick riders and ropers entertained and they were GOOD!   
   
In my opinion, the very easiest event for the fan to understand is barrel racing.   Three barrels to get around.   Knock any over and suffer a 5 second penalty.   And everything is electronically timed.  The lady and horse with  the fastest score wins.  

Westworld is an indoor arena with mixed artificial and natural light.   Although to the naked eye the arena looks well lit, it's a different challenge for a photographer.   Photos right out of the camera have a very decidedly orange tint.   The best white balance I found was fluorescent.  Because of the camera-weak lighting, I had to often use a very high ISO of 6400 or more.   Post processing in Lightroom, sometimes also in Luminar 4, and a few in Simplify 4. 


Next rodeo up for me is the Cave Creek Rodeo at the end of March.

Until My Next Adventure,

See you on down the road,

Jim Patterson

Here's a slideshow of all of my photos.... ENJOY!

Cave Creek Rodeo 2 April 2017

I photographed the Cave Creek Rodeo finals on Sunday 2 April.  This made it seven years in a row I photographed this wonderful PRCA Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association sanctioned event. 

The Cervi people provided the four legged stock athletes (animals).   The two legged cowboy and cowgirl athletes were the other half of the event.

I really respect this sport and the athletes.  It’s dangerous and these folks have to do well in these events to make a living.  If a cowboy or cowgirl gets a penalty or no score, they are out and must go to the next rodeo for another try.

Country artist super star Garth Brooks put it best in his hit “Rodeo” about how really hard this sport and life are!  Part of the lyrics goes like this,

Well it’s bulls and blood
It’s dust and mud
It's the roar of a Sunday crowd
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in the buckle
He'll win the next go 'round

Take a good look at how these cowboys and cowgirls “bring it” in the finals.  By the way, rodeo clown Justin “Rumpshaker” Rumford was funny too!

Until My Next Adventure, 

(Country Thunder) 

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

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

Cave Creek Pro Rodeo - 3 April 2016

This was the fifth straight Cave Creek Rodeo I’ve photographed.  There is something about rodeos that I really enjoy attending and photographing.  It’s the cowboys and cowgirls.  It’s the volunteers who work so hard at this… believe me, it takes a ton of folks to pull this off.  It’s the rodeo clowns and the judges and the fans that ask for it all.  

The Cave Creek arena is about perfect for me.  For the best angles and to stay out of the way of fans in back of me, I waaaay back in the last row.  It’s a much smaller arena than the Tucson Rodeo uses.  I like that.   It’s easy to get to, easy to park, everything is right there.  Plenty of beer and hot dogs so I was happy.  

A smaller arena meant I could get away with using a smaller lighter lens.  For the second half of the rodeo, I used a Tamron 28-300mm.  For the first half, I used a beast of a lens, the Tamron 150-600mm hand held.  Yes, hand held.  It’s designed to be used on a tripod or monopod.  I made it though.!  

Given we were in bright sunlight, I shot mostly at ISO 100 and tried to keep the shutter to about 1/800 to 1/1000 of a second.  

The feature of every rodeo seems to be the last event, bull riding.  Now I do love eight seconds of hell on top of such a beast, but the ladies event, the barrel racing, might be my all time favorite.  Wow, they were good.  One young lady looked to be competitive, but knocked down two barrels so the penalty seconds took her out of the money. 

Until My Next Adventure, 

(Country Thunder!)

See You On Down The Road!

Jim Patterson




...and, here are all the keeper photos!