Finally

Rodeo season is he-ere! This morning I drove through some nasty weather up to Heber in Wasatch County for the first morning of the Utah High School Rodeo Championships. I had a great year last year chasing rodeos around and I am looking forward to getting to as many as I can this year to continue working on my rodeo culture project. There is so much outside and on the fringes of the arena that I tend to miss whats happening on the bull or bronc most of the time. It isn't really the sport that has interested me so far, it is the families, individuals and communities that surround this sport that resembles pageantry...just in a rougher and raw form I should add. My mother's uncles and cousins were all Utah cowboys. My mother remembers starched Levi's standing up on their own in the corner of a room. I remember the first time I met my Great Uncle George, he was wearing a giant yellow cowboy hat. Growing up so far from any 'real' cowboys I had a hard time imagining what my family's life must have been like. I think a peripheral hope of photographing rodeo and the Western lifestyle the last couple years is to see into that same heritage I was never privy to. So hopefully this is the first of plenty more from this year. If you are curious to see what I put together from last years rodeo season click here.