July 25, 2015 and it’s my first rodeo.
First ANYTHING, when you’re a photographer, means you try to look really “cool” with all the gear hanging from your neck … but actually have no idea what your doing. My greatest concerns were how to avoid getting killed and how to keep the dust out of my camera. I saw Bea who was there to cover the event for the Lodi News-Sentinel and she looked “cool” too.
Eventually I found my way into an elevated judging area at the far end of the arena with good shade and a seat. I brought both my 200mm zoom and 300mm prime with a cropped sensor body that gave me what I needed to see both right below me and the chutes at the other end.
For the most part things were coming right at me. That made it easy to concentrate on the action and let the camera keep itself focused. The people were really nice and the kids were fearless. As I remember, Bea got an extraordinary shot from ground level with a wide angle lens. That’s what I’ll do next time.
Photography Anecdotes 