Not My First Rodeo

Summer 2025

I had made my way through the rows of horse trailers for the third time and still wasn’t finding the photos.  I was looking for cowboy culture (inasmuch as one might find it in New Jersey.)  I had a vision in my head that included photos of saddles on fence rails, lassos and stirrups, cowboy hats at the ready and boots with spurs strewn about.  I was seeing none of that.  But then again, I wasn’t in a barnyard, I was in a fairground parking field.

The rodeo was in town again.  I was photographing behind the scenes in the horse trailer and prep area.  Last year I had politely asked if I could photograph from ground-level and I was told “no.”  So instead I thought I’d look for photos of the “other side” of the rodeo.  I had almost given up, plus I was getting hot on this 90° afternoon.  But, as it got closer to start time the riders started gathering their horses in the warm-up ring.  Their dusty silhouettes in the lowering sunlight re-piqued my interest.  I started wondering if I could finagle my way into the actual rodeo corrals and chutes as an assignment photographer.  I heaved my camera bag over my shoulder, quietly laughing and reminding myself - this was not my first rodeo…

It’s no secret that I love it out West.  I’ve done a lot of traveling and exploring through the deserts of Arizona, in the hills of Wyoming, and I’ve done quite a bit of bouncing around the western half of Montana.  The western lifestyle is beautifully relaxed and I find the expanses of wide open spaces just fascinating.  Then I go and watch a series like 1883 and I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like to travel across hundreds of miles of pristine undeveloped Western country.  I think I was born a hundred years too late.