Flagbearers wait to ride into the arena at the start of the Night of the Horse: Wild West Extravaganza on April 18, 2009. Photo taken for the Del Mar Times.

I inherited a good amount of western culture from my parents.  Though I hated the hard work of driving cattle on horseback in my youth, I grew to appreciate and even enjoy riding horses.  I daresay I even feel nostalgic about long hot summer days in high school spent fixing fences outside of town, constantly spotting upwind tumbleweeds and lamenting the existential threat they posed to my fragile electric wire.

So of course I enjoy a good rodeo.  The Wild West Extravaganza in Del Mar on April 18 didn’t offer any bullriding, barrel racing or other competition, but what it lacked in western athleticism it made up in corny yet heartfully sincere nostalgia.  The historical past of the 19th-century western United States may not have been so noble, but it has spawned a modern yearning for a time of chivalry, brotherhood and romance that can make even the most jaded urbanite get lost in tales of cowboys and Indians.

Mexican Charro rider Tomás Garcilazo widens his lasso before putting it around his entire horse and riding off.

You can see the rest of my photos of the show at the Del Mar Times website.

A group of children in cowboy costume mill around their covered wagon before the start of the Night of the Horse: Wild West Extravaganza on April 18, 2009 at the Del Mar Fair Grounds.

Eric Runningpath, of the Soaring Eagles, performs the hoop dance at the beginning of the Wild West Extravaganza at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on April 18, 2009.

Meanwhile, I was perfectly content to squeak by with an ancient 300mm wide open at f/2.8 to keep the bulls and their riders sharp.  That is, until I found out that a spectator’s beer I had clumsily knocked over with my big fat camera bag cost seven dollars to replace.  My chagrin at the remuneration of said refreshment bled over into pessimism regarding my ability to deliver quality images of the rodeo.

Later that night, however, I was perusing my photos when I found an unexpected keeper: I had caught the flash from the parabolic satellite dish on the rodeo photographer’s camera, giving me one frame of a cowboy’s ride lit dramatically from the side.  Considering my shutter speed was close to 1/1000 of a second, I assume that the pulse from the flash had to have been rather long.  That, and maybe I had a little luck on my side after all.

And then, a few weeks later I was reading Newsweek’s terrific Beijing Olympics photo blog Visions of China when I came across a photo by Donald Miralle of Michael Phelps celebrating his eighth gold medal.

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Simon Barnett, DOP for NEWSWEEK, lauded Miralle’s photo for the effect added by catching another photographer’s flash.  I couldn’t help but note the similarities between the circumstances around Miralle’s photo and mine: both shooting sports, both using 300mm Canon lenses, both struggling in low light to freeze the action, both using another’s flash to highlight the subject.

Regardless of the historic event that Miralle caught so well, I couldn’t help but smirk at the fact that my photo came first.