Smalltown rodeos are great for photography. Because they are smaller, you can get closer to the action more easily than at a larger rodeo. I went to a rodeo on a late August Sunday afternoon in St-Albert, a short drive outside Ottawa Ontario. This event was scheduled through the Rawhide Rodeo Company and was part of the St-Albert Curd Festival.

Cowgirl on the run

Although the shooting conditions looked less than ideal because it was a bit rainy.  The overcast sky actually provided good even lighting as opposed to the harsh/contrasty lighting conditions of a sunny day. Less light however means shooting at higher ISOs than on a sunny day. All photos were shot with a Canon 40D with a 100-300 5.6L lens. Most photos were shot at ISOs ranging between 400-800 in order to be able to shoot at acceptable shutter speeds for this slow lens. In order to help with stability, I used a monopod.  The monopod helps to get better panned shots as some of the included shots

In order to protect the camera and lens I made myself a protective cover using a large Ziploc bag and an elastic band. This worked well because the rain was quite light. As with any rain cover however, it works better when your lens is an internally focusing lens. In this case, the lens was not an internally focusing lens, so focusing caused the plastic bag to twist with focus which can prevent achieving the right focus…

One of the problems with shooting this type of event is getting a good backgroud. Using a fast shutter speed and freezing the action would mostly yield photos with a subject having very little definition with respect with the background.  The subject would blend in with the background.   In order to prevent having clear views of spectators as a background, I like to use a panning technique to get a relatively clear image with a blurred background.

Here are some examples.  The first three photos were shot using parallel panning where you follow the subject’s motion while using a slower shutter speed.  Because of the relatively fast speed of the running horses, a slow shutter speed in this case means 1/125 sec.

Cowboy on the run

For more information on panning techniques refer to my article on ‘Slow shutter panning bike race photos‘

In this photograph, the blurred background was actually introduced in Photoshop using a ‘Motion Blur’ filter and a layer mask.  Painting with a soft black brush on the white layer mask, over the cow, the horse and the cowboy gives a similar effect as the above images.

Cowboy misses calf

In this photo, a dark vignette was added on the photo to focus attention to the center of the photo showing the cowboy holding on to the cow after jumping off his horse.

Cowboy jumps on cow

Used Adobe Camera Raw to lower the saturation of the blue background and bring attention to the main subjects.

Cowboy toppling calf

Keep an eye open for photo opportunities outside the rodeo arena. These photos were captured by looking around between events.  It adds to the storyline of what is happening during the rodeo.

Cowboys on the fence

Cropped this photo and added some sepia toning effect in Photoshop CS5.  Also made use of the Spot Healing Brush with ‘Content Aware’ feature to remove some of the distractions in the field.  This feature of Photoshop CS5 is simply an amazing time saver to this type of image editing.  The telephone poles and white bails of hay were removed in no time compared to what would have been required with previous version of Photoshop.  This is one of the key features that makes the upgrade to CS5 worthwile…

Original Cowboy out for a ride

Cowboy out for a ride

Photo of cowgirl hopping over fence at St-Albert Ontario Rodeo.   Photoshop adjustments made to add a sepia tone to the photo using a B&W layer with a mask on the main subject. Shading on the subject’s face and increase in saturation in the hair and sweater of the cowgirl.

Cowgirl hopping fence