A small central Oregon rodeo. As much fun as the big ones.
Not so good technically, but to me they show the feeling of what goes on in the arena.
The last image is the only flying cowboy I've ever seen.

Charlie,

Love the b&w...they have the feel of an old time rodeo from the 50's. Great Job!

Sheila

Charlie, I've also seen your other rodeo shots. The action in all is reasonable but you you must always strive to gain faces to display the emotion of the moment that tells the story, particularly with the extremes of emotion shown in rodeos which are a very big part of a good shot. Not only the rider's face but also that of the horse or beast. Think of a portrait devoid of a face.

Never shoot from the stands unless you have no choice and never stand up unless you have no other choice. If you're not getting dirt on your backside, you're not shooting low enough to put the viewer right in there with the action nor are you able to amplify the height of the horse/rider, it's jumps and a rider's fall. To the contrary, the higher the shooting position, the more the perception of height and size is reduced.

B&W always looks good for rodeo shots, but I've noticed both motion blur and lots of grain/noise (perhaps the grain has been added in the mono conversion) in your past threads, so I'd up your shutter speed substantially and also lower your f stop which will also help isolate the subject from the backgrounds. I notice number 2 looks like you've tried to brush soften the background and it looks very patchy.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Sheila and Jay.
Jay- More than 35 years ago I moved to Portland, Oregon. One Saturday I decided to see a rodeo, so I drove over the mountains to a little cow-town where they were having a rodeo. I took my camera with 135mm lens attached, B&W film in it.
I paid general admission and then walked around looking for a good place to watch the rodeo.
While I was watching it, I took a couple rolls of film.
On the next Monday I took the film into a drugstore for processing and picked it up a few days later.
Recently I scanned some of those negatives and processed a few of the pictures.
I haven't shot another rodeo since that day.
Your suggestions are most likely spot on. But they don't apply .
Charlie

It would have been nice to learn this in the opening post, Charlie. Now I feel like a bloody fool for commenting.

Jay_Be wrote:
It would have been nice to learn this in the opening post, Charlie. Now I feel like a bloody fool for commenting.

No need to feel that way, Jay.
I qualify my posts from time to time, but as you can tell- I have posted a lot over the last few years. And a complete list of qualifiers would be very lengthy. So I don't list my disclaimers all the time.
Because I get few comments from viewers, I assume they tend to be from people who have looked at some of my 5,000 to 10,000 posts, and therefore know a bit about me. Apparently not .
I see that you have commented (and posted?) relatively few times on FM, so you would likely not know about all my previously stated disclaimers.
Sorry about that.
Charlie

Well taken B&W Images.