As photographers much of our job is getting creative. One hundred photographers can line up and shoot the same object… it will be very easy to tell each person’s scope by the images they get.
Or the images they don’t get.
Walking into the rodeo stadium at the Austin “Star of Texas” Fair and Rodeo this past Sunday I immediately knew I had my work cut out for me. The lighting was dim and uneven and the colors (or lack thereof) didn’t inspire much confidence. I think the Gardiner rodeo last spring ruined rodeos for me; the location, the light, the action – everything came together. Rodeos will forever be compared to that one.
Back to Austin. Time to get creative. Finagling my way down to the front row near the chutes I crouched down on the stairs and was able to keep out of the way. I slipped a cut-off pantyhose over the end of my lens, garnering some weird and perhaps even worried looks from the people around me. And I slowed the shutter speed way down.
The results were exactly what I had hoped for.
Action was blurred. A grainy, rough look was added to the pictures. A rodeo in real life is hard, fast action, dust and dirt. I am hoping this image series will help convey that to the viewer. Here’s a brief sample; I am passing around the series to some clients now. It will be made public in the weeks to come – watch for it on the Fire Girl portfolio!
In other news: I’m heading down to the coast for a few days. Hoping to fish a bit, photograph a lot. Get a sunburn and eat some shrimp. There is a lot to mull over and the presence of water always makes big decisions easier.
See you on the flip side.
Tags: Events
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