Boot scootin’ back to the rodeo

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn perform “Brand New Man”
Wednesday night at RodeoHouston in NRG Stadium.
After taking a few years off the road, Brooks and Dunn
are back with their Reboot tour.

Bull rider Jesse Flores of California gets bucked off

during Wednesday night’s bull riding competition
at RodeoHouston in NRG Stadium.

It sure feels good to be back in the saddle again.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is in full swing and it’s almost like returning home to be wrapped in a country and western atmosphere. For three weeks I’m no longer the cowboy hat-wearing oddball but just part of the crowd at NRG Park. I wear my cowboy hat year-round but don’t currently live on a farm or ranch. So, as they say, I’m all hat and no cattle. But on Wednesday night at NRG Stadium, I was definitely in my element.

This ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve been photographing rodeos for most of 30 or so years. I love it. Normally when I’m in NRG Stadium I’m photographing a Texans game, but each March they exchange the artificial turf for dirt and hooves replace cleats tearing up the surface. While I have a profound appreciation for roping events, I’m a rough stock guy. The photographer in me loves the thrill, action, and sheer terror of the sport. It makes for incredible pictures and many memorable moments.

From what I understand, outside of the National Finals Rodeo, RodeoHouston is the largest, most competitive rodeo in the world. The best of the best compete here. I don’t follow rodeo nearly to the degree that I do football or baseball, but I do recognize names as they come around each March. And it’s not just the competitors, it’s the announcers and bullfighters (clowns) as well. Some of them I’ve come to know over the years.

After the last bull ride, I departed the arena to meet with the media escort who takes a handful of photographers out to photograph the concert. Wednesday night was Brooks and Dunn, an act that I had never seen before and had given up hope of seeing when they quit touring a few years ago. They’re back now with their Reboot tour.

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn are in their late 60s but they sure don’t act like it. They still bring an energy to their performance that you’d expect from someone half their age. It was good to see. And as they worked their way through a 70-minute, 18-song concert you could feel the energy in NRG growing.

At most concerts anywhere, photographers are usually given two to three songs to take pictures and then they have to leave. We got two songs, so while they were belting out “Brand New Man” and “Put A Girl In It” (which included Dunn accidentally dropping the mic and breaking it), the small pack of shooters circled the rotating stage, each of us angling to get what we hope is “the” shot.

With the conclusion of the second song, I returned to the press box high atop the stadium where I joined my wife, Sandy, for the remainder of the concert. She helps me out by maintaining a score sheet of the rodeo and updates me on things I miss while transitioning from one place to another.

Covering the rodeo is exhausting but incredibly enjoyable work. The really hard part, however, is sorting through nearly 2,000 photographs to find the ones I like best and then prep them for production. What you are hopefully seeing here with this column are a couple of my better pictures, at least as I could determine from a very rapid review after the show.

Soon, I will gear up and do it all over again. I hope you enjoy it. If you want to see more, we post a lot of photos on the Wharton Journal-Spectator’s SmugMug website (wharton-journal-spectator.smugmug.com). There you will find a lot of photos from local games and events that we can’t fit into print. And if you see something you like, you can purchase prints or digital downloads (without the watermark) from there.

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.