Category Archives: Sport

Photo of the Month – November 2012 Reply

Australia, Photo of the Month, Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Sport • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

BULL RIDING IS BACK

Well it’s Professional Bull Riding season in Australia and the opening round of the Australian Cup Series kicked off in Wollongong (not far from Sydney) in New South Wales this past weekend.

It was the 2012 Wollongong Invitational held at the WIN Entertainment Centre.

I will follow up on the first half of the Australian Cup Series season in a later blog, but for now here are a couple of images from the weekend.

Note: If you want to get to all of them then head to the bottom and check out the animated slide show. 100 Photos / 3 Minutes.

Both main photos are of event Champion Jock Connolly. In the one below he is riding a bull named Sin City for a score of 85.5 points in round 2. As it turned out this ride won him the event.

Champion -  Jock Connolly on a bull named Sin City

Both these photos were actually used for the cover story for the event on PBR’s website (see screenshot below).

The below photo of Jock was taken a short time before he got on the above bull. He was simply hanging out on the bull chutes. If you haven’t been before, there was an actual bull just below his right foot. He was about to help a fellow rider get roped in for their ride.

The contest is based on each rider’s combined score for riding 2 bulls, then the highest ranked combined scores get to ride in a round 3 called the ‘Short Go’. The highest scoring rider entering the Short Go gets to ride last, which was Jock.

As it turned out he had already won before he had to ride in the final round. He rode his final and third bull, giving him 3 for 3 on the night, but unfortunately for him, as he was dismounting (a.k.a. getting tossed off) he landed pretty hard, and when I last saw him up close immediately afterwards it looked like he had busted his collar bone. Either that or he had grown some extra lumps on his right shoulder and he looked like he was in quite a bit of pain, and I mean a lot.

PBR Website

I leave you with a slide show with some images from the 2012 Wollongong Invitational.

100 Photos / 3 Minutes

See You There!

2012 IndyCar Champion Reply

IndyCar - IRL, Motorsports, Sport, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2012 INDYCAR CHAMPION

Well not much to say other than congratulations to Ryan and the Andretti Autosports team for winning the 2012 IndyCar Championship.

2012 IndyCar Champion

The winner of the final race was Ed Carpenter, who happened to be the subject of one of my PHOTO OF THE MONTH editions earlier in the year.

2012 IndyCar Champion

See you at the track next season.

PBR Livingston Classic Reply

Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Published, Sport, Travel, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well a couple of my buddies are running their annual PBR Livingston Classic in a couple of weeks in Livingston, Montana.

So if you happen to be in the neighborhood, drop in, it is a great event.

I have written about these jokers before. They are the official Photographers for the Professional Bull Riders (PBR), and half decent fly fishers as well. Bull Stock Media.

Just down the road from Livingston is some spectacular scenery in Yellowstone National Park. So not only do you get to see some world class bucking bulls and cowboys, but also some really cool scenery and the odd Bison or plenty.

I took the photos on the promo poster at this same event in the last couple of years. The bull is ex World Champion ‘Big Tex’, a good looking bull if I do say so.

So get to Montana. Have a beer for me if you do… as unfortunately I can’t make it this year.

Photo of the Month – May 2012 Reply

IndyCar - IRL, Motorsports, Photo of the Month, Sport, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

Well here is the next photo of the month in the series. As usual, as an added bonus I have provided at the end of the post, the very next image that was taken after this one.

May 2012 – INDYCAR_Ed Carpenter

The Indy Racing League (INDYCAR) series is a combination of Oval and Road Course open wheel racing. The Indianapolis 500 is the most famous of these, and is perhaps the most famous of all car races in the World. I have stood on the starting grid for the opening of the Indy 500, an F1 Grand Prix, and the NASCAR Daytona 500, and while I enjoy stock car racing and F1, that few minutes just before the Indy 500 starts is absolutely electrifying. Even if you didn’t like motorsports, if your heart didn’t speed up just a little when those most famous words in car racing are uttered… ‘gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines’…  then you are either extremely hard to please, a boring fart who shouldn’t have come in the first place, or just plain dead.

The above photo was taken at the opening round of the 2012 INDYCAR season at St. Petersburg in Florida. This was the adopted home on English race car driver Dan Wheldon, and it was the first INDYCAR race since his untimely death at the final race of the preceding season in Las Vegas.

I chose to stand on Turn 10 for much of the race. It was a great vantage point to get them coming around a sharp left hand corner after a relatively long straight-away along the side of the mariner. It was also Dan Wheldon Way. On the map below I was actually standing on the other side of the corner (i.e. not on the water side), and the cars were coming along The Acura Advance towards me.

INDYCAR St Petersburg Track Map

The driver in the photo is Ed Carpenter. He is closely followed by eventual race winner and 3 time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves.

As chance would have it, after the race ended I remained on Turn 10 with one other photographer. Usually I would head back to Victory Lane for the celebrations, but today for some reason I stayed here.

Contrary to standard practice, Helio stopped his car (pretty much right in front of me) on his victory lap, and even more surprisingly, got out of his car. He then jumped up onto the wall, and said good-bye to his friend.

EXPOSURE SETTINGS

ISO: 250

Aperture: f/4

Shutter Speed: 1/4,000th

Focal Length: 200mm

Note to Shutter Speed: For this particular shot I didn’t need it that fast, but I had just been taking some on the straight away and forgot to change it.

EQUIPMENT

Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mk IV

Lens: Canon EF70-200 f/2.8L II

Race Winner – Helio Castroneves

THE VERY NEXT PHOTO

Same corner… Aussie Will Power for Roger Penske Racing.

That’s It… See You There!

INDYCAR on the Streets of St. Petersburg Reply

Equipment, HDR, IndyCar - IRL, Motorsports, Sport, Techniques, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So what do INDYCARS and Planes have in common…. to roughly quote Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights…. ‘they go fast!’.

… Same deal as usual… if reading doesn’t float your boat, you can jump straight to the photos. READ NOT… LOOK AT PHOTOS NOW.

Details and specs on how the photos were taken and with what gear is included along the way. Some with the relevant photos, and some at the end. Please send me a note if you would like more detailed info or explanation.

So how fast?… well an IndyCar will get to around 220-240 mph, while a WWII North American P-51 Mustang will cruise at 362mph/580kmh (top speed of 437mph/703kmh). Now while the Mustang may seem to have the advantage, I would expect the sensation of speed when you are only a few inches from the ground at 200+mpg in an IndyCar compared to flying at 40,000 feet (usually much lower) must feel like you are literally ‘flying’.

To get a better appreciation for the speed and power I took the opportunity for the sake of interest to get to a photographer ‘hole’ a little beyond turn 2 in St. Petersburg recently. From here the cars are coming out of slight turn, then putting their boot into it… and they go past this hole literally inches from your (my) face. Yes it was freak’n loud, with rubber and other crap hitting you in the face… and unless you were dead or just plain stupid… it was a tad on the scary side. If something happened with a car, or it tossed a bit of road shrapnel, there was absolutely no way in hell to do anything about it. You would be toast. I took some cool photos from here, then got the hell out of there and headed for safer locales around the track.

So getting back to the story of IndyCars and Planes. I was heading down to Tampa for a large air show called Sun’n'Fun, which is held annually in Lakeland (just outside Tampa) at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. As chance would have it, the opening round of the 2012 INDYCAR season was being held on the Streets of St. Petersburg (right next to Tampa) the weekend before. I had not been to this race before, and as I prefer open wheel road course racing (compared to ovals) I headed off a few days early. I had also met Dan Wheldon a few times before, so it would also be nice to be there for his memorial race (many of the photos in the slide show were taken from Dan Wheldon Way… a street named after him).

For those familiar with the much larger EAA Air Venture OshKosh Air Show, the Sun’n'Fun show is a similar concept. Many people fly their own planes in and camp out. During the days there are vendor displays, training workshops, and a structured air show each afternoon. As you would expect, a lot of the people attending are avid aviation enthusiasts, with many building their own aircraft. I include a couple of happy snaps below of some planes at the air show, but will follow up with a future blog.

So back to the Streets of St. Petersburg.

I spent a lot of race day with my head out the photographers’ hole on turn 10, which as it turned out was Dan Wheldon Way. Nice spot. Marina in the background with some expensive looking boats doing little else but looking back at me.

Taking photos of race cars for me is both interesting and exciting. A lot of noise, color, and the always in the back of your mind ‘little you’ saying… if something goes wrong where you are standing it is not going to be a good day. Still, if it was boring who would want to do it. I am not very good looking anyway, so a lug nut scar on my forehead is not going to do much damage.

Below is a quick video snapshot of where I was for reference purposes. It was taken the day before the race during the practice session, hence you will see the cars running in single file, and being nice.

Once you have taken a few bajillion photos of the same thing… they all look the same (funny about that). What is the definition of stupid? Doing the same thing over and over again… and expecting a different result. Yep that sounds like me if you look at how many photos I have of the same thing. So this time I set out to just mess around. My objective was to get full frame photos (i.e. not crop afterwards), and to get shots where I could see the drivers face while running at speed. Either that, or close ups of the car… meaning that you couldn’t see the entire car.

Aussie Ryan Briscoe in St. Petersburg

Now while this sounds simple enough, because the subject is moving pretty fast, it becomes a test of what you want in focus… and managing to hold the camera focus point on it while it barrels passed you. I use ‘servo’ mode in these situations, which is pretty much the center focus point. I will also fire in bursts of around 3 photos at a time while tracking the car.

Ed Carpenter… followed by race winner Helio Castroneves

CAMERA SPECS FOR ON THE TRACK

Shutter Speed: 1/250th to 1/4,000th / Aperture: f/2.8 to f/5.6 / ISO: 200 to 500

I have my cameras setup with a custom function that changes what the buttons/dials do from standard…. if I am taking photos on the track (i.e. cars moving) I am always in Manual exposure mode. I set the shutter speed and aperture… then I modify exposure on the fly by only changing the ISO. You can set this to be an automatic function in the Canon EOS-1D_MkIV but the reaction time is too slow when the cars are running at speed and you are using servo focus and burst shooting mode. So… set what you want to freeze (shutter). Set how much depth of field you want (aperture).. then just change the sensor sensitivity (ISO) as needed… if you make this the rear dial it is pretty simple.

When the car is traveling laterally in front of you (i.e. from left to right across your field of view), you can use a much slower shutter speed, either to blur the actual car (or wheels), or pan with the car to blur the background. Both give the impression of speed to varying degrees. If you use a wide angle lens for this your latitude for keeping focus is far greater than a longer lens.

However when the car is moving towards or away from you your depth of field gets a little more challenging. For one thing the car is physically changing where it is in relation to the camera focus point, and quickly, but also because you are likely using a longer lens (200mm +), and generally a large’ish aperture (remember: large aperture = small f/stop number).

I like freezing these types of images (when the car is moving towards or away from you), as you can’t really see the tire walls (to show motion blur) so I will err on the side of a fast shutter speed if I have enough light (ISO) to make the math work. Generally around 1/1000th to 1/2,000th if I am getting the whole car (see Ed Carpenter photo above)… but if I am in tight (see Ryan Briscoe photo above) I may even go up to 1/4,000th depending on my distance relative to the car and its speed (tight corners are different than fast straight aways). The above images of Ed and Ryan are not cropped…. so they are in your view finder for a fraction of a second. To get them sharp (if that is your objective) you need to freeze them in an instant, and because I was after their actual faces, it was even more important to freeze them.

With Legend Mario Andretti on Pit Lane just before the race

One of the cool things about being in the center of the bee hive at these events is that you get to meet some really cool (and famous people). My wife laughs at me, but I always try and get a happy snap for my personal album. I think Roger Penske and Mario Andretti think I am a stalker by now… to their credit though, they also smile and let me do it.

On Pit Lane with Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car

As you can see in the above photo of me with the DHL car on pit lane (Ryan Hunter-Reay), I use a California Sunbounce ‘Press Harness’ when I am on the track. This is a great piece of gear. I hang the MkIV and the 70-200 on my right side, as this is my primary setup,  and the 5DMkII and one of the wide angle lenses on my left. I will sometimes have a Speedlite on each camera, but this gets cumbersome and you knock them around, so I will generally leave the flash on the 5D, and swap it if I need it on the longer lens. Why use it with the long lens I hear some of you ask?… puts a great catch light in a person’s eyes, and/or will brighten up some of the shadows on their face (particularly if they are wearing a hat).

Helio Castroneves loading up on Pit Lane

CAMERA SPECS FOR ON PIT LANE

Shutter Speed: 1/60th to 1/800th / Aperture: f/4 to f/11.0 / ISO: 200 to 400

On pit lane it is a different story than when the cars are moving at speed. Ideally you want a little more depth of field, and at times to include a bit more of the surrounding environment. Meaning that if you just show a driver sitting in their car (which you will need to do and should do)… they could be anywhere. But if you add some context to the scene you can tell a story in a picture (see Helio image above of him getting in his car with his pit crew). You will generally be using a wide angle lens due to how close you are, and how much you need to get in the frame. So your aperture will be smaller (small aperture = large f/stop number), and you will also gain a lot of depth of field due to the nature of how a wide angle lens work (a story for a different day). Also depending our where you position the lens, you can also get some very cool looking perspective distortion effects.

As noted earlier on in the story… toss a flash on your camera. You will thank yourself later. Try the experiment. Shoot some in aperture priority… no flash. Chances are you will have a lot of shadows… or a very blown out sky. Light up the subject with a Speedlite (if appropriate) and fool the camera with respect to what the overall exposure is… it will look cool. You should have a dial on your camera that allows you to alter the exposure compensation (of the camera)… under expose what the camera wants to do by a stop or so. There should also be a button/dial on the camera (or on your flash) that does the same thing… but for the flash (only). Over expose this… as the camera will fire it in TTL  mode using the original exposure settings… so the overall photo will be underexposed. So again you need to fool the camera. Crank the flash up (most Speedlites will go up around +2 f/stops). You will be surprised at how much you can crank this dial without over exposing your subject, especially when you are out in the blazing sun.

Helio Castroneves

Sun…. so invariably this will mean that your camera will be firing at a higher shutter speed than the sync speed of the flash (unless you really stop the lens down, and even this may not be enough). So don’t forget to set your flash to Hypersync mode… meaning that it will work with high shutter speeds. Most DSLRs sync around 1/200th (some slower… some faster). Out in the sun your shutter could be 1/800th or more? In hypersync the flash doesn’t fire just once, but a gazillion times while the shutter is open. Therein lies a small issue that you may need to deal with in your settings. In hypersync the Speedlite is unable to give you its full output (remember how many times and how fast it is firing), so to compromise you may need to trade something (usually shutter speed).

Helio Castroneves

On Pit Lane I will nearly always fire the flash, as it allows you to underexpose the background a little to get some more saturated colors (great for making the sky go really blue)… then you light up the actual subject with the flash. An OK example of this is the above image with Helio getting in his car. With no flash the sky and clouds would have been really blown out to get him and the car reasonably exposed. You can see the flash highlight on the closest wheel to the camera. I actually had it pointed slightly to the right so that it wouldn’t overexpose him, while picking up some of the number 9 (Scott Dixon) car… you can see how it has lit up the back wheel. I had the camera compensation dialed down about a stop and a half, and had the flash compensation cracked up a full 2 stops.

Helio Castroneves just after winning the race

Well that’s it.

I leave you with a photo of Helio Castroneves celebrating his win with Dan Wheldon’s road sign on turn 10. This photo was actually used as the lead for the official race website (see it here).

See the photos from INDYCAR St. Petersburg here.   INDYCAR on the Streets of St. Petersburg – 100 Photos / 4 Minutes.

CAMERA GEAR THAT I HAD ON ME

Canon EOS-1D MkIV

Canon EOD-5D MkII

Canon EF70-200 f/2.8L II

Canon EF24-70 f/.8L

Canon EF16-35 f/2.8L II

Canon Speedlite 580EX II

Bulls, Cowboys… and Big & Rich Reply

HDR, Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Sport, Travel, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Well this one has been stuck in my ‘draft’ folder for quite some time… so time to finish it and hit send.

It is mainly photos this time around so fairly easy on your brain muscle. If you want to skip the whole thing you can see the animated slideshow of the event here: LAST COWBOY STANDING

It is Bull Riding again, mixed in with some travel, so if neither float your boat then it is time to check out and go and grab a coffee (or beer). Pictures are reasonable though, so you may want to flick through them if nothing else.

As usual thanks to my buddies at Bull Stock Media for letting me hang out with them – this time for PBR’s Last Cowboy Standing event in Detroit at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions NFL football team.

So what is LAST COWBOY STANDING?

Pretty much as it sounds. You keep riding bulls until only one is left. It is set up in a round (or section) format. Every cowboy rides in round 1 (35), then only those who ride for the full 8 seconds move onto round 2 (14), and so on. Only 3 made it out of round 2. Current World Champion Silvano Alves, 201o World Champion Renato Nunes, and ‘will be world champion at some point’ Robson Palermo. The Brazilian Trifecta.

World Champion Silvano Alves – The Last Cowboy Standing

Last Cowboy Standing…  that is pretty much what happened. Current World Champion, Brazilian Silvano Alves took home the buckle and a stack of cash… by a fraction of a second as it turned out.

The PBR has a ‘stadium’ series early in the season, which includes playing at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. The series ended in Detroit (on 10th March 2012) with an event called ‘Last Cowboy Standing’.

It was held at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions. The arena is closed at one end, and a pile of dirt is dumped on the other end, upon which the PBR construction crew does an amazing job of transforming it into a bull riding arena, complete with bull pens (behind the blue curtain on the below photo).

Ford Field in Detroit

Inside the Arena – in HDR

On the morning of the event I thought I would go for a walk around the arena to take some HDR (high dynamic range) photos of Tiger Stadium. I had packed my Gitzo tripod and Really Right Stuff ball-head and kit so I was all set. I got out early so that there wouldn’t be many people walking around… as for some reason… rubber neckers (australian for sight see’ers) seem to think that if they come right up to you and look into the camera lens and ask ‘watcha do’in’… that they won’t be in the photo (that you aren’t taking of them). Not that I don’t like people… just not in my HDR photos. So early it was.

If you haven’t been to the baseball stadium before, they have a really cool main gate area. Shown below.

Tiger Stadium in Detroit

PBR Hauler in HDR

What was also cool about this event was that Big & Rich were playing the pre-show. Normally these things go for around 15 minutes… however they played for an hour. I managed to squirrel  myself onto the stage so that I could get some up close happy snaps. Not sure what it sounded like from up in the bleachers, but from where I was it was really cool. Watching Big Kenny do his thing up close was also worth the price of admission.

My hat goes off to photographers who specialize in concert photography. It is damn hard. The color temperature of the lights, and their intensity is constantly changing, so getting a bead on a good camera set-up was tough. In the end I just gave up and set it on full manual, and lived with either grossly over or under exposed images. The ones that hit the sweet spot were cool. But… and there is always a but… some of the ones that were screwed up due to not being correctly exposed would have been really good (yeah sure) if they had worked out. I need to go to a few more times to get it figured out. I was just happy to be with the band.

Big & Rich

John Rich

Big Kenny Alphin

Big Kenny Alphin of Big & Rich

So… what about the bull riding you may ask.

Silvano Alves won… ‘and that’s all I have to say about that’. At the time of writing this he had also just won the follow up event at Glendale in Arizona. Not a bad weeks work if you can get it.

Ryan McConnel Taking a Rope on I’m Back

Justin Koon… didn’t end well!

So as I said… not many words, and a bunch of happy snaps.

Below is World Champion Silvano on his winning ride in round 3… he was the only one that rode, hence he became the Last Cowboy Standing. The below image made the home page of PBR, PBR Brazil, and PBR Australia on the same day. Pretty cool for an Aussie from the bush…

Silvano Alves winning Last Cowboy Standing

Here is the animated slide show of the event: LAST COWBOY STANDING

Here are a few more photos from Bull Stock Media (including some from yours truly) on PBR’s website. Last Cowboy Standing Photos.

Seeya.

Got Published – PBR Pro Bull Rider Magazine Reply

Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Published, Sport, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Managed to get a ‘double truck’ in the February/March 2012 edition of PBR Pro Bull Rider Magazine.

The photo was taken at the 2011 PBR World Finals in Las Vegas.

Bull is Back Bender.

Photo was taken from the ‘Shark Cage’ in the middle of the arena at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Got Published… PBR Pro Bull Rider Magazine 1

Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Published, Sport, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Published in the February/March 2012 edition of PBR Pro Bull Rider Magazine.

The photo is of 2011 World Champion Bull – Bushwacker.

Taken at the 2011 World Finals in Las Vegas. I was sitting in the ‘Shark Cage’ in the middle of the arena.

Baltimore. City of Bulls, Boats & Crab Cakes Reply

Equipment, Professional Bull Riding - PBR, Sport, Techniques, Travel, U.S.A. • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Had crab cakes before… sure. Didn’t think they lived up to all the hype though. Bunch of filler with some crab mush (or something) in. Akin to eating fish tasting baby food.

So to try the real deal (Maryland Crab Cake) I went to Baltimore. Baltimore was on my ‘places to go to’ list, I had some real work to do there, and PBR was on the weekend that I managed to line it all up. Logic… do some work, quick look at Baltimore, try some crab cakes, tick another place of my travel map, then go and take some photos of Bull Riding with my buddies at Bull Stock Media.

First the place. I stayed downtown as it was walking distance to 1st Mariner Arena (where PBR was being held), and it was pretty central to all the other things that I needed to get done (ie work).

Baltimore Inner Harbor

Second. Crab Cakes. My self imposed mission was to have 1 serving per day at a different place each time (was there 3 days). As it turns out… quality had little to do with the location or establishment. Day 1 a colleague took me to a local place in Dundalk (explored by John Smith in 1608 as part of the Chesapeake Bay expedition). We ate at the type of place that several generations of the same family have been to, and you sit at the same table each time… likely served by a person who knows your name (and birthday). This was officially my first real Maryland Crab Cake. And there was no comparison to all those imposters that had been passed off to me as ‘crab cake’ previously. This thing actually had big chunks of real crab… and the whole thing literally fell apart (not like the porridge like experience with other crab cakes). It tasted fantastic… although I could feel my cholesterol meter going up with each tasty mouth full. One comment though from a crab cake amateur… it was luke warm, as were all three experiences. I like hot food to be hot, but I guess this is how you eat them.

Orioles Baseball Stadium from my hotel window

My next experience was downtown on Inner Harbor, at a nationally recognized seafood chain. I had eaten at this chain before in other U.S. cities. The food was OK (not fantastic… food for the masses). However I was in Baltimore, on the harbor, so I expected the crab cakes to be really good here. Unfortunately they were not, and would have qualified as the previously mentioned porridge variety. Very disappointing.

The winner though (narrowly tipping out Dundalk) was Faidley Seafood at Lexington Market. Lexington is the largest continuously run market in the world… more than 220 years, and Faidley has been around since 1886. It is currently owned by Bill and Nancy Devine, who are descendants of the original founders. I actually met Bill while I was there.Nothing fancy about this place. You line up. Order. Get it on a paper plate with plastic eating gear… and you stand up to eat it. However this just adds to the experience and the nostalgia of the place… and the actual cakes were really good… as was the company. My thanks to my friend Todd and his lovely wife and daughter for taking me there. Very enjoyable.

Me with the Stanley DeWalt Bull Riders

So with work and my eating out of the way… time for some bull riding. I have written about taking photos of bull riding several times before, so won’t bore you with the technical details of how it is done. I tried a few different things here this time, so will share that with you.

NOTE: if you just want to look at some photos… either click on the link at the end of this sentence or skip to the bottom for an animated slideshow of the PBR Baltimore Invitational. 100 Photos / 4 Minutes.

I normally hang out in the shark cage in the middle of the arena (I did this one night here also). On the second night I stayed up on the chutes with the cowboys. My buddy Matt (Bull Stock Media) has been taking some really cool shots up close, so I thought that I would give it a try. It isn’t for the faint hearted, as one swipe of the bull’s head (big horns) could take a finger or two off, or even worse, wreck your camera and lens. I have extra fingers, and some other cameras… so let’s give it a try.

Douglas Ferreira on South Point

It is a little hard to describe the experience when you are up on the chutes with the cowboys while they are loading up. It is organized chaos, but if you know where to stand (and where not to), it is a cool place to be. Once the cowboys get to know you they are very accommodating. The bulls on the other hand… don’t give a crap, literally. Taking these photos literally means getting down on your knees, and sticking your camera into the bull chute, between the legs of either the officials or the cowboys helping to rope down the rider. It is like a dance. If it gets out of sync, someone gets stepped on.

It is also very noisy so you can’t really communicate by talking (when the rider is about to come out of the chute). So you develop a morse-code type arrangement by tapping on legs etc to let them know that you are there and where you are in relation to them and the ‘escape route’. They don’t have to look, as they know it is you. The other major consideration is the TV camera guys. These guys are busy, and need to get the shot, as many times it is live TV. They are also very accommodating once they know that you know what you are doing, and won’t get in their way. The arrangement (this time by way of head nods)… when they don’t need the shot… I (or Matt) duck into the slot and get some stills, then pull out just before you know that they will need to get back in. The other issue is getting out of their way when they are shooting. If the bulls go ape-shit and lift up in the chute, the camera guy needs to get out of the way in a hurry. So you need to give them some elbow room, and make sure that if they need to step, that they won’t fall over you (remember I am on my knees at their feet at this point).

At the end of the day though, everyone has a job to do to make the event run, and for it to be successful. So as long as you know what the order of priority is, the sequence of events, and your role in it – all works fine.

Marco Eguche on Black & Decker Orange Crust

Ryan McConnel on Bar Code / Score 85.50

So to briefly give you the specs on how these shots were taken.

Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mk IV

Lens: Canon EF16-35 f/2.8L II with Tiffen HT (high transmission) filter

ISO: 3200 – 6400 (these were at 5000)

Shutter: 1/800th

Aperture: f/2.8

2010 World Champion Renato Nunes on King Lopez / Score 86.75

While it may seem cool to be standing (kneeling) on the chutes… and let me tell you… it is, you have to be prepared to wear some big clods of mud (which sting when they hit you in the face), bull snot by the gobs, and the odd bit of green stinky bull crap… all of which invariably hits your camera, the front of your lens… and you.

As described in some of my previous blogs, the ph0tos are sent directly via wireless transmitter on the cameras, via ‘The Photo Commander’ at Bull Stock Media up to PBR Live Photos. Bull Stock Media do an excellent job at this for fans to see live footage from the events.

Guilherme Marchi on Dark Shadow sent from my MkIV

I leave you with this shot of PBR Bull ‘Back Bender’. He (like most world class PBR bulls) has a head the size of a small car. I had my EF16-35 f/2.8L II literally touching the front of his nostril inside the chute, hence it is way out of focus. The highlights you see near his nose… that my friends is the proverbial ‘Bull Snot’ as he is breathing out. I had to clean big gobs of it off once he left the chute… along with the mud and bull crap that he so generously shared as he exited.

Ty Pozzobon on Back Bender

In case you are interested…. here is an animated slideshow from the PBR Baltimore Invitational. Click on this link to watch it on YouTube or use the embedded video below.   100 Photos / 4 Minutes