Judging With Their Boots...

I had a couple of assignments that were slated for the local section front that fell through. Then the third assignment I had wasn't happening until the next day. And, while having my assignment load drop from five to two may make the day sound easier, it actually makes it a lot more difficult. I still need to fill a section front with a photo. And, it can't be some crap grip-n-grin stuff, I still have to put my name on it. Luckily, almost the whole month of January, the Abilene Spectacular Cutting Show is going on at the Taylor County Expo Center. So I went out there seeing wha I could find, these usually make for some of the better shots anyway, since I can just hang out and shoot what I want. So, when I got there I saw all the judges just sitting there and their cowboy boots all sticking out of their stalls. Sweet! I knew I had my shot, I spent about 15 minutes just shooting tight on the boots sticking out until I had a shot I was happy with.

Starting the New Year off in a good light...

Saturday was a busy day, and this assignment almost never happened. I had two other assignments and this was basically "find a feature at the cutting show." Now, if you've never been to a horse cutting event, even the participants will tell you this, it's pretty damn boring to watch if you don't do it, or know what you're looking for. I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking for. So, when I have to go shoot these events, I don't even bother entering the arena, I just look for something going on outside.

Here's where the "this almost didn't happen part comes in. In between an assignment out of town and two basketball games and working desk I had to do this. Basically I had about 15 minutes to find something. So, I get to the Taylor County Expo Center, park and walk into the horse barns. That's when I saw this great light , there were a few people around with their horses, so I just stood around waiting for someone to walk through this great light. Well after about 10 minutes I had nothing and was getting nervous. When a young kid asked me what I was doing, after I told him I was taking photos for the newspaper he asked what I wanted him to do to get in the paper. After explaining that I don't set up photos, he told me he was taking his horse to the wash bay. I figured I'd follow him there, and get some shots of him washing his horse, since no one was taking advantage of this great light.

After spending my last few minutes of my time getting some decent shot of the kid washing his horse I was walking out of the barn, when I saw this great site. Don Long was "tuning up" his horse. And the best part is, the cutting that the horse was doing was kicking up dust to make the rays of light even nicer! I spent about 5-10 minutes shooting, waiting for him to be in the light just right. After he got done I got his name talked to him for a couple minutes and then took off (late) for my basketball game, but happy I stuck around. The basketball game was nothing special, but I knew as I was leaving I had something nice from this, it was worth be late to basketball.