Cave Creek Rodeo: 27 March 2022 and 26 March 2023

Certainly my favorite rodeo is the one closest to where I live:  The Cave Creek Rodeo.   Another "must see" around the Phoenix area is the Cave Creek Rodeo parade.  I'll post more on that with photos in another blog entry.

One of the crowd favorite events is bull riding.   Riders have to ride for at least 8 seconds or it's a no ride.   Scores come 50% from the cowboy and 50% from the bull.  

Cave Creek is an hour or so east of Wickenburg, the self proclaimed "team roping capital of the world."   Certainly some team ropers come from Wickenburg, but really from all over the USA and Canada.

My second favorite event is barrel racing.  Here, ladies of rodeo take center stage.   Knock over a barrel, and add a five second penalty to the final score.  The idea is to get around three barrels and then race to the finish line.   It's electronic timing.  Passing through the beam starts the clock; passing through the exit stops the clock.

Until My Next Adventure,

See you on down the road,

Jim Patterson

All images from 27 March 2022 HERE

All images from 26 March 2023 HERE

Cave Creek Rodeo Finals 30 May 2021

Finally!  After over a year without fans, the Cave Creek Rodeo in Arizona opened to fans.  The stands were FULL and not a mask or muzzle in sight. 

I was in the Stockman's Club and took my perch high up in the last row.   I captured images with a Canon EOS R6 and a Tamron 100-400.   I rarely needed anything beyond 200mm so I could have used the Tamron 70-200mm.

The Servi Brothers of Colorado again supplied the stock.   They were very lively rodeo stock, too.   

The Cave Creek Rodeo featured seven events.  Steer wrestling, bareback riding, team roping, saddle bronc riding, tie down roping, the ladies of barrel racing, and the popular bull riding.   

One of the interesting contestants came in the saddle bronc riding event.  Nathan Urie of Ferron, Utah was born with only a right arm!   He didn't make the eight second mark, but stayed on for a good six seconds.

Final standings for the Cave Creek Rodeo are HERE.

Post processing in Lightroom.  Sometimes in Luminar ai.   My new pre-processing takes my raw files into Adobe Camera Raw and then use the new "enhance" feature.   This cleans up any noise and also dramatically increases the size of the image so I can crop with confidence.   Then I take those new enhanced raw dng files into DxO's new PureRaw for final clean up.  

My settings for a night rodeo were shutter speed of 1/800, wide open aperture, auto white balance, and auto ISO.  I was impressed with the auto white balance.  I did not need to change white balance in Lightroom.   

Until My Next Adventure,

See you on down the road,

Jim Patterson

Click the photo below for all of my Cave Creek Rodeo images!

AND, my narrated video on YouTube!  

*** Have you tried Luminar ai yet?   It's what I use.  Click HERE to find out more!

*** I have consistently saved money through Greentoe.  For me, I always check prices for camera lenses and equipment.  Shipping is free and often they pay the tax!  Click HERE to get started.

Cave Creek Rodeo 24 March 2019

The Cave Creek Rodeo in Arizona has to be the best small PRCA sanctioned rodeo in North America.  I've photographed this rodeo for about ten or more straight years and it is an absolute joy.  The best group of folks around.  

Images were made with a Canon EOS R and Canon 70-200mm lens.  Post processing in Lightroom and Photolemur.

Usually bull riding comes last.  This time around for this finals event they started with bull riding, part one, and ended with bull riding part two.  Kind of an interesting way to do it.  There's a lot of tradition involved in rodeo and I have to think people like things the way it's always been done, but this worked out well.  

The bulls were especially nasty today as I don't remember more than one cowboy sticking around past eight seconds. Somebody did.  The all-around cowboy was JC Mortensen, winning $1,858 for bareback riding and bull riding. 

The featured event is always bull riding.  But before that the ladies of rodeo perform at barrel racing.  And what a show they put on!  








Here's a complete list of Cave Creek Rodeo winners.  And great professional stock was again supplied by the Cervi Brothers.  

And the Cave Creek Rodeo ends with the horse stock running around the arena.  

I've also posted the Sunday finals photos on Flickr and on my portfolio site on SmugMug.

See ya soon!!!

Until My Next Adventure,

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

... And here's a slideshow from the Cave Creek Rodeo!

Cave Creek Rodeo Sunday 25 March 2018

 One of the finest small PRCA sanctioned rodeos in North America is the Cave Creek Rodeo in Arizona.  I was again there taking photos, this time from the Stockman's Club.

This rodeo might be the most fan friendly and camera friendly rodeo in all of North America.  Sadly, so many of the rodeos and other events as well are limiting "professional" cameras, or cameras that have detachable lenses.  I think they want to stop people from bringing in oversized 150-160mm lenses that looks more like weapons.  I still don't like it.  And the other trend is to require clear plastic bags.  I have no idea how much longer the Cave Creek Rodeo will be so fan and photographer friendly, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. 

Rodeos have bareback riding, roping, clowns, barrel racing, and of course the headliner is always bull riding.  Eight seconds of hell, if a cowboy lasts that long.  My second favorite event is the ladies barrel racing. 

Until My Next Adventure,

See You On Down the Road!

Jim Patterson

… and all the photos!

Cave Creek Rodeo Finals 29 March 2015

The Future of Rodeo!

I was happy to photograph yet another Cave Creek (Arizona) Rodeo finals.  This is one of the top five best small professional rodeos in the United States.  Every seat is a good one.  I like sitting at the very top row.  That way, nobody complains when I stand to take a photo.  I sat “center stage” high enough to give me a great vantage point. 

Leon Coffee, Rodeo Clown... and he was GOOD!

One of the Compton Cowboys

A movie crew was in town to film “Fire on the Hill: The Compton Cowboys” about some hard charging cowboys (Ghuan, Chris, and Calvin) from Compton, California, not really known for being a hotbed of rodeo talent.  But those fellows competed.  This is an interesting story so make sure you check out the link above.  I wish the film project well!

The other story line was the rodeo clown, Luke "Leon" Coffee, a Hall of Fame inductee, actor, and Vietnam veteran.  He was funny, too!

Rick and Callista

Of course we think of the cowboy and cowgirl athletes at these events.  But let’s not forget the animal athletes!  This years stock, like the last few years, supplied by the Cervi Brothers. 

And this year, I brought two rodeo newbies with me, Arizona Wildcat softball great Callista Balko and her fiancé Wildcat football great Rick Elmore.  I think they both know what great athletes compete in rodeos.  These folks often haul their animals with them, pay the entrance fee, and if they make one mistake or have an animal not compete, they are out of the money and have to move on to the next rodeo.  Also note that only the bull riders seem to wear helmets.  This is a dangerous sport. 

Barrel Racing... the ladies turn!

I shot with my Canon 5D Mark III and this time with one lens, the Canon 70-300mm.  I found where I was sitting I could pretty much stay at 200mm.  I shot mostly f/16 at ISO400, AI Servo/fast continuous.  I ended up with nearly 500 photos but you will see just a portion of that. 

Thrown from the Bull... a dangerous sport

I do hope you enjoy… Next up for me is shooting the North Valley Relay for Life located on the Paradise Valley Community College campus on April 10th.


Until My Next Adventure,


See You On Down The Road!


Jim Patterson





Here are all the photos from the Cave Creek Rodeo!

New MacPhun Intensify Released!

BEFORE Intensify Pro 1.02

May 20, 2014 - The new MacPhun Intensify release 1.02 is out and it adds additional RAW file support for more cameras, more fully integrates features from Apple’s latest Macintosh OS (Mavericks), introduces the Macphun Print Lab (powered by MILK Books) and adds the ability to export

AFTER Intensify Pro 1.02

images to SmugMug, increasing the software’s sharing capabilities.

You can run the regular and “pro” versions as a standalone. With the pro version, you can edit from within Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Aperture, or my favorite, Lightroom.

BEFORE Intensify Pro 1.02

I've used Intensify Pro before and here are a few before and after examples, done from within Lightroom. What I do is right click on the photo I want to edit in Intensify Pro from Lightroom's film strip, then EDIT IN, INTENSIFY PRO. Then, Pro will open and I'm ready to try any of the presets or use some of the custom controls.

AFTER Intensify Pro 1.02

For these before and after shots, I used Intensify Pro from within Photoshop Creative Cloud.  You can see the difference.

Some of the key new features, according to the MacPhun people, include:

BEFORE Intensify Pro 1.02

Macphun Print Lab - Intensify photos can now with a few clicks be turned into personalized products like postcards and notecards, delivered direct. Affordable, high quality gallery frames and canvas prints can also be ordered, perfect for gifts to friends and family. The Macphun Print Lab is powered by MILK Books.

Integration with SmugMug - SmugMug is one of the world's leading photography communities with millions of users worldwide. Images can be exported directly from Intensify to SmugMug portfolios for viewing, sharing and printing.

AFTER Intensify Pro 1.02

RAW Updates - Intensify now supports RAW formats from all the most popular cameras. The native RAW processor supports 16-bit images and opens files faster than in any other app.

Mavericks Support - Intensify is now taking advantage of all the powerful features of Apple's latest OS, Mavericks. Support for the new Notifications feature will enable more timely communications with customers about updates, new features, free presets and more.

BEFORE Intensify Pro 1.02

And, additional shortcuts to the user interface provide quick access to the most important tools and features.

AFTER Intensify Pro 1.02

Until My Next Adventure,

See You On Down The Road!

Jim Patterson

My discount code for you is JGPatterson:

Cave Creek Rodeo Finals 30 March 2014

Team Roping, Background Out of Focus with Focus2Pro

This is one of the finest smaller pro rodeos around.  It’s in Cave Creek, just a few miles north of Phoenix, in a very compact arena.  I’ve photographed this event before, and I thought I’d try another vantage point.  This time, I went to the very last row center stage.

Barrel Racing

I shoot primarily with a Canon 5d Mark III.  I mistakenly brought the Canon 70-200mm lens.  I was disappointed at first because I thought I needed more reach.  Yes, many of the photos I ended up with are cropped, but I’m still pleased at the output. 

Black and White with Silver Efex Pro

I used Tv priority, or shutter priority, setting the camera at 1/1000^th of second to capture action without blurring.  It was a sunny day, so I used ISO 100 and a sunny white balance, although since I shoot in raw I could change white balance in post processing.  I didn’t need to, though.

HDR Toning with HDR Efex Pro

I use primarily Adobe Lightroom in post processing.  I did use some plugins for the black and white photo, using Silver Efex Pro.  I like the look and feel of the black and white conversion; it reminded me of an old Lone Ranger scene.  I also used an output filter for HDR toning called HDR Efex Pro.  And I used MacPhuns’ Focus2Pro to put focus on selected areas of a photo. 

Rider Thrown from the Bucking Bronco!

My salute to all the cowboys and cowgirls of the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association) and the people of the Cave Creek Pro Rodeo.  This is a dangerous and very hard business.  These folks go from rodeo to rodeo chasing wins.  All it takes is one mistake and they get nothing and have to move on.  Some people in Europe think they can insult Americans by calling them “cowboys.”  I always answered I WISH I WERE A COWBOY! 

Bull Riding, With Help from Focus2Pro

From Color to Black and White back to Selective Color

See ya on down the road!

Jim Patterson

Here are all my photos of the rodeo from Flickr….

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