#097 Michael Pintar - Pro Rodeo Photographer

Passion for photography stems from an underlying interest in art. Michael Pintar did not, however, harness a desire for creating art again until being gifted his first DSLR camera over a decade ago. Michael started shooting professionally in 2015, including recently becoming a PRCA photographer. In the July 2020 BlackRapid Spotlight entitled ‘Bulls Won’t Pay the Bills’, I share how a longtime respect for rodeo generates my intent for capturing the spirit of our greatest American sport. Tune in as Michael Pintar joins Bobby Marshall to perform in-studio and discuss photography, rodeo, bull riding, Colorado, outdoor photography, mountain life, and so much more.

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Michael Pintar - Pro Rodeo Photographer

Our guest for this episode is Michael Pintar. He’s a professional rodeo photographer who spends a ton of time behind the lens in extreme danger photographing rodeo cowboys. His photos are stunning, but above all that, Mike is a great guy. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with him. We had a couple of glasses of whiskey and it was a great time.

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It’s great to have you, Mike. Thanks for coming in. We’re diving right into this thing. Music has played a huge part in my life and I grew up around horses and cowboys. I grew up here in Evergreen and this was a cow town back in the day. It still is. It’s still got a pretty heavy Western influence.

I hope we can keep that. It’s a struggle. I think a lot of towns, be it where they may be, are seeing a little bit of that demise of that nostalgicness that made them what they are. Cow towns as they call them.

They’re dropping like flies.

I hate to use the native coin, that term native, because I’m not. We were just talking about the fact that this is episode 97. Kudos to you. That’s a lot of episodes.

Thanks. It’s gone by in a blur, honestly, and now I have about 96 new friends. I think only two of them didn’t work out.

As I mentioned, my brother and I moved out here in ‘97 and we came out sight unseen from Wisconsin. You talk about growing up around horses and agriculture. Small town country folk, I would say. My brother and I are from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We live the city life and it was something where when we came out here sight unseen, we moved out to Colorado Springs. It was closer to our birthday because Cheyenne Frontier Days had just ended. I’m one of those people who were inspired by the movie 8 Seconds.

That was an incredible movie.

It’s supposed to discourage you from getting on bulls.

I wonder how many guys went and got on bulls because of that movie.

Guilty as charged, it was inspirational to me and blessed the late great Lane Frost and those who rode with him like your Tufts, Codys, and all that. The whole thing about it is that we’re driving by Cheyenne and it had just ended a week before that, but we also had this modern soon thing going on. In fact, I think that was the same weekend as we were coming through with that Fort Collins had that unfortunate flood that wiped out all that stuff. The Spring Creek Trail, Spring Creek Flood, or whatever they called it. We got down to Colorado Springs and I’m thinking, “Where the fuck are the Rocky Mountains? I can’t even see them.” For the first week, we’re there. I thought the Rocky Mountains would be rockier than this.

Finally, there it was one morning. We woke up in our apartment that we were living in Newett and there was Pikes Peak right outside our window. I was like, “Son of a bitch. This is beautiful.” The smell of the rains, the mountain desert, Garden of the Gods, and all that stuff right there. In ‘97, I was definitely a transplant still and a lot had grown already. It’s definitely grown a lot but it was cool to finally see where we were living. We’re city boys who want to be Cowboys.

I think there’s a lot of Western influence in the State of Colorado. We were part of the Wild West, the Gold Rush frontier, and all that stuff. Cattle raising was a big thing here back in the day. Believe it or not, the only reason I know this is because I used to get black eyes from the cowboy’s man. They were fucking tough and I was a bit of a metalhead growing up. I even rode horses, took horse-riding lessons, did a little bit of team roping and bulldogging, and all that sort of stuff later in high school because some of my buddies were into it, but I was always a metal head. I was always the guy cranking Pantera. I might have had blue hair at one point.

I didn’t fit into that crowd, and back then, it was a little bit rougher. You were expected to be a cowboy. Some of the rules when you showed up at these rodeos or whatever, if you were participating, I remember my buddies telling me that you have to be in a Western shirt and a cowboy hat. You have to dress the part.

Yeah, especially in hue. What do you call it? Code of Ethics. I don’t know, but it is something that has still held true, especially on the PRCA level. We’re required to dress a certain way. I know back when I did my arena evaluation down in Fort Worth with the great photographer Click Thompson, one of the gentlemen who inspired me. He is another guy that moved from out East and lives in Fort Worth now. He does fantastic work.

I thought when I was going to do the arena evaluation that the PRCA requires us one of your final steps to become a PRCA photographer and that they’re just going to grade me on my images. I’m glad I asked ahead of time because it alleviated some of the pressure, but it’s more about how you interact. How do you carry out the ethics or the image of what rodeo is trying to convey? Both in the ways you interact with not only the fans but the athletes. How do you stay the heck out of their way? I’m one of these people who does like to shoot.

I don’t know how you do that. We’re going to dive into that deep here.

It’s one of those things, but it’s still the long sleeve shirts, the jeans, and the boots. Footwear is a little different on the photographer’s end.

Are you wearing some of the bull fighter cleats or something?

It is dependent upon the event. What I do is you just find a good pair of boots or two that you wear and swap them out every other day or you find a good pair of a crepe sole-type of thing that keeps your feet more comfortable. You can’t go in there with flip-flops.

I thought you had to run, especially with camera equipment.

I’ve been running a lot. That’s a tough one there, but we can cover that too. I’ve got methods for how we try to take care of that.

let’s dive into your background. You mentioned Milwaukee. The only place I’ve considered arson in my entire life. It’s like the evil’s ballroom.

You at least have to have a passion for rodeo to consider putting yourself on the back of one of these animals.

Do you want to know something? I can’t remember what they call it now right there on Wisconsin Avenue. Do you know who I saw there many years ago? It was Big Head Todd and Dave Matthews band. The interesting thing about it was Milwaukee fans are savvy with their music. When you grew up in Milwaukee, we were bartending by the time we were as tall as the table in front of us here, and that was when you got to spin your music.

You’re always playing your own tapes or your disks or whatever. We didn’t have the TouchTunes jukeboxes or everything that we could stream or do whatever. You learn a lot about music and we were talking about how my diversity for music came from probably slinging drinks, but the Eagles Club, as we called it at the time.

Was it the Eagles ballroom or Eagles Club?

I don’t know for sure because I’d only been there a couple of times. I saw some bands, but as I mentioned, these guys weren’t even headliners per se. They weren’t selling out stadiums, but Big Head Todd in Milwaukee was savvy with their music. We’re like, “Who the heck are these Dave Matthews guys?” They originally had it lined up where Big Head Todd was opening for Dave. We’re like, “No. Dave opens for Big Head Todd,” and I thought that was interesting.

You go there and it wasn’t sitting or assigned seats. We are just standing around like a regular bar room. I’m up there high-fiving Dave and doing whatever. Things like that inspired me to, “If I’m going to see a big name band, can’t we just do it like that more again?” I know these guys are going to sell out stadiums and stuff. That’s a great way to see it.

I have a lot of close friends that are part of his production crew. They travel around the world with him, putting on stuff. I’ve worked with him throughout the years on and off. He’s genuinely a nice person and curious. He would be a great podcaster because I can’t count the times that I’d been walking down out of the arena and down one of those hallways to one of the green rooms or something, and there’d be a janitor closet. This janitor filling up his bucket and Dave’s got him cornered like, “How many kids do you have? Where are you from? Where’d you grow up?” He used to love people. That was a while back. I’m not crazy about his music per se. It’s not my style. It’s awesome live and he’s an incredible person.

He’s played with so many great musicians too. I think there’s that live at Luther College. My son has probably seen Dave numerous times at Alpine Valley back there. He lives in Wisconsin as well. He’s seen Dave so many times. When he comes out here every now and then, we’ll grab our guitars and try to jam a little bit. He no doubts busts into it a little bit of Dave, and I can’t. I’m like you. I appreciate and respect his music. Sorry, Dave Matthews, but it’s not going to be in my favorites, but every now and then, I’ll jam.

I’m not going to lie. I got a little Dave playlist.

I love the raw stuff. I heard a thing a while back that some of the stuff he wrote, he goes, “I don’t even know what the hell I was singing about.” There’s a great interview that he did with Howard Stern.

I think it’s at Radio City. They recorded three nights there like a live video of his concert. It was just Dave Matthews and maybe a couple of session players, but not the full Dave Matthews band. A lot of it was acoustic sets. He talked about taking his family into the bush because they were so privileged. He went back to South Africa, where he’s originally from there. They went and lived with this tribe somewhere out there for three weeks. They went from straight-up cell phones, iPads, and all this stuff to eating bugs and living in mud huts. He had just come back from that trip.

He said that he was sitting around the campfire one night with all these natives or tribal people that are still living primitively out there in Africa. They started singing the song. It was like a ritual-type thing and a little bit of a welcoming thing. He asked his translator, and he’s like, “I want to know what the words to this song mean.” Later in that concert, he did his own rendition of this song to try to recreate it but the tribal leader turned to him and said, “This song is older than words. We’ve been seeing this for thousands of years.” He’s one of those guys that goes out and has these crazy experiences to share about. That made me respect him. It’s a cool story.

I think we can associate that with so many things. It’s hard to be original now. He did bring a lot of original vocalizations, sounds, music, and all that.

I think he’s still doing that because he’s a huge artist. He could sell out football stadiums. He could be on a stadium tour. I know for a fact because I got friends out with him right now and he specifically goes and does all these sheds. It’s all your outdoor amphitheaters and not the big ones. He’ll go to Bend, Oregon and play. They’re doing 2 or 3 nights here in Denver and it’s not at mile high. He is keeping it real to that intimate side of music.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I hate to sound privileged or spoiled, but those are the types of shows I’m going to go to. I was talking to my girlfriend Jennifer and she’s lived all over, but she technically grew up in Florida. A lot of boating, as you can imagine, when she was growing up and things like that, but she was talking about a time when they were on one of these cool islands. Jimmy Buffett is playing there in some bar. He did an hour-long set.

The best thing about it is when you can be in those places, they’re just like anybody else. They know that in most cases, the people that are there are not running up and getting in your face. They’ll sit down and have a drink with you. “I don’t need all the autographs. I don’t need all that. Let me just hear you play, whatever. Thank you for being here.” That’s the best part about it.

We brought this up in the last episode. I had Mark Morris in. I was telling you about that. His outlaw country meets bluegrass meets this French-Irish music. It’s wild. They have a mandolin and they have a standup bass. He’s amazing. He was our first live music in the studio. He played three songs. He is awesome, but he grew up right here in Clear Creek too, which is cool. He’s also a pro skier, but we got to talking about Willie used to live and everything for a while.

He used to live in Evergreen for a while and we started talking about the Little Bear and how rough it used to be. We were born in 1980 or around that. Mark is a little bit younger than me, but we were talking about if we were there in the ‘70s. You probably would’ve seen Watne Lynn hanging out with some of those biker clubs and stuff that were in town. How cool would that have been in the little town?

There is no doubt that if the walls could talk over there, which they do. I think they do talk over there at the Little Bear.

Everybody’s got something carved into them.

Although I’m technically Evergreen, I am Clear Creek. When I go home at night, it’s usually up at Bear Creek way past winter Gulch. I had always heard Willie had his place up there and then his daughter. I don’t know if it burnt out. I don’t know the whole history of it. It bookends what we were talking about because we were talking about a small town, and there is something to be said about that. There is some cool history to this area right here in Evergreen, and the Little Bear is one of those anchors.

It’s been there a long time. I think it used to be a mercantile or something way back in the day. There are some old photos you can dig up of it. It’s pretty cool. It looks like a Wyatt Earp standing in the front door selling you beaver pelts or whatever.

Anytime you go down a set of wooden stairs that are so worn in, it does jingle. There are holes in the floor from upstairs. I used to get up there back in the day when they would pack that in and wonder, “When is this going to cave in?” It was a church too. Do you know that?

Rodeo Photographer: These animals are considered athletes just as much as the cowboys or cowgirls on them.

I didn’t know that.

We’ve been going to cowboy church there, and there is nothing better than going to cowboy church. They talk from the stage. Pastor Ed does that. There are bras hanging everywhere. It’s the best.

Is that Ed Shirley?

Yeah.

He is an awesome guy. I’ve known the Shirleys for a long time. That whole family is amazing.

Ed is a great guy. He’s one of these people that says, “Just because I’m up here talking doesn’t mean you have to buy into every single thing that I say. You may agree or disagree.” The message that he puts out rings a bell, and that’s pretty neat.

I think Tim was in the national finals. Was he a champion? I know he was a coach.

We were talking about this with this whole monument in there. He took my brother’s wife’s hat. He goes over and talks to Tim and then he comes back without his hat. We’re like, “Where the hell is your hat? What did you do with your freaking hat?” Tim’s taking it. He’s shaping it and cleaning it up for me. We said, “You’ll never see that thing again.”

For people that don’t know what we’re talking about, we’ve got a local living rodeo legend here. He’s a few years younger than me, but he made it to the Top 15 in the world in bareback riding, which is bucking horses. It’s insane. If you’ve never been to a rodeo, I urge you to go to one to see what it’s all about because it’s pretty exhilarating. We’re burning through the time already. This is awesome. It’s great having you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

It was good catching up with you. Let’s dive a little bit into your background and what evolved you into what you’re doing now full-time as a professional rodeo photographer.

I don’t know how professional, but I’m trying to be.

Your photos are fucking amazing. Hands down. I have a photographer’s eye until I see somebody’s photos like yours. I’m like, “I suck at this.” All the stuff I’ve shot in the past has been action sports, rock and roll. I had a photography company for a while and I used to get called for weddings. I could have made a fucking killing shooting weddings, but I never took one of them. The closest that I came to a cookie-cutter photographer was I did a few portraits for friends for free.

Other than that, it had to be something that was moving fast. I’ve gotten to shoot professional boxing, professional freestyle motocross, and motocross. Rodeo is definitely in that category, but it’s almost the next level. To freeze these fucking deranged animals are doing to these people that are on the back of them.

I don’t mean to offend anybody, but you at least have to have a passion for this sport to even consider putting yourself on the back of one of these animals if it’s a bucking event or something like that, even the roping events. The way that you portray it and freeze it is amazing. One of my favorite things to shoot now is animals and shooting wildlife.

I love shooting elk during the rut in September, running around here with a camera at 6:00 in the morning. Nothing makes me happier. I love seeing pissed-off animals in that captured moment in a split second in time. You do a good job of it. I want to get into some of your gear a little bit too. We’re going to geek out a little bit on that. This is insane. The quality and how it’s blown out in the background is something I would hang on the wall here. Do you know what I’m saying?

I’m going to find something for your wall too if you don’t mind. I’d love to donate something to you. I was thinking about it. I go, “I haven’t been in here, so I don’t know what would work.” It’s not like I’m going to come in here with one of them 20x60s and steal all your space. “We had room for other pictures until Pintar came in here.” I’ll probably talk a little bit backward here, but when you take a look. For example, this is at the Evergreen Rodeo, which was Father’s Day weekend, and the bull rider is Kyle Gardner. Shout out to you, Kyle.

Here’s the thing that’s interesting about it. There wasn’t a single bull rider that covered that weekend. It was tough because I got on bulls for a while. When my brother and I first moved out here sight-unseen, come out to Colorado Springs, and about two weeks into it, Tuff Hedeman is getting inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. Going back to 8 Seconds and all these people that were become your idols, I told my brother. I said, “Let’s go down to the Hall of Fame this morning and go get our pictures taken with Tuff Hedeman. Let’s see if we can say hi to him.”

I roll in there with some crushed-ass straw hat thinking I’m a cowboy. I’ve got two buttons already down on my shirt. I looked like I should be on a sailboat or something instead of a cowboy and up. I’m standing next to this statute that says “The champ,” right there and there’s Tuff Hedeman. Somewhere around, I still have that original photograph. I say photograph because you can’t pull it up on the phone or anything like that. We didn’t have all that.

It was back in the disposable camera days.

I have a lot of appreciation for bulls. Granted, I never filled my card in, and obviously, that meant I never became fully professional. In fact, I never even got a permit. My brother took it a little further. My brother Brian decided to ride bulls a little longer than me, but I had tremendous respect and appreciation for it. One of the companies that are helping me out a little bit is BlackRapid and they make good straps for carrying your camera gear.

I got a BlackRapid harness. They’re nice. It’s like a dual camera.

Saying you get on bulls doesn't make you a cowboy.

I use a dual one and they make them in all kinds of deals. They try to make them ergonomically friendly and gender-specific even to. They’ve come a long way. They’re still durable. Ron, the owner, sent me a message in 2020 and said, “We do a photographer spotlights. We’ve looked at your work, and we don’t have anybody that puts out this stuff. Would you want to do the photographer spotlight?” I’m all over it.

2020 was already wacko as it was, but here’s a chance to try to help put your name out there a little more. I sent in 5 to 8 pictures. I explained a little bit about how I was inspired by rodeo, and this is where it leads up to the photography thing. It didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t going to go to the pay window very much trying to ride bulls. You don’t start at 26 years old getting on bulls.

You started that late.

We’d go down to Penrose, Colorado and get on Dean Drake rodeo bulls. I think they called it the Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association. I don’t even know if it still exists.

It’s a lot easier to run away from them when you don’t fall right off of them.

I learned real quickly that saying you get on bulls doesn’t make you a cowboy. In fact, there are a lot of rough stock riders out there who would agree with me that even being a rough stock rider, getting on the bronc, bare, and the bulls don’t make you a cowboy necessarily. That’s no disrespect. A lot of them grew up being able to get on horses and ranching, which led to rodeo. Rodeoing was probably their ticket away from the ranching.

I think so for a lot of those small-town kids. That’s why a lot of kids did it here. It was an excuse to travel. That’s why I did. That was the only reason I was going with my buddies to help them get on bulls or get on bucking horses and stuff like that. It was fun to be around and the country girls were pretty.

Yeah. Why do you think I tried to get on bulls?

Their dads were always around. Also, their brothers were mean and shit.

The brothers were mean. They’re looking out for them, but the girls are pretty in rodeo. There was no doubt about it. I couldn’t afford a horse. That July 2020 Spotlight in BlackRapid, I even talked about the fact that I respect the rodeo enough to know that I’m not going to be able to make a living at this, but there was always this latent art side or artistic side so to say that never quite fit in, even when I was in high school. It was because of the football getting in the way, wrestling, and all the other sports that my brothers and I did.

I did a little bit of art back in the day. I even won a scholarship or two or something. That always stayed there somewhere latently, as I say within me. People would say, “I noticed you took a picture of that. You got an eye.” “What do you mean I got an eye? Everybody can do this. I took 1,000 of them to get the 1 picture.” I think it took a while, but probably still right up until in the last few years when I started going, “Maybe there is something to this photography stuff and having an eye for it.”

When you take a look at pictures, for example, we’re looking here at Instagram-type pictures. Granted, I bring in what I can. I bring that focal point because social media has asked us to do that a lot. We do either perfectly square pictures or the 4x5 framing and try to bring it in. A lot of that is intended because I want to give attention to the athlete themselves as well as the animal that they’re on.

I think a lot of people think that this is abusive to the animals and stuff too. These animals are considered athletes just as much as the cowboys or cowgirls that are crawling on them. Even though these horses are wild, they have names. They are world-renowned.

They’re Hall of Famers. A real quick backtrack. When I moved back to Colorado, I went down to Cave Creek, Arizona, for about three years around 2015. I cut my teeth in the amateur arena down there and started to shoot bulls and things like that. In the rough stock world, it’s very geographical in terms of what type of animals they will get on sometimes. It means a lot of your great bronc riders come out of the Dakotas up North. You got bulls everywhere. Everybody loves bull riding, but it’s probably the one sport in rodeo that wasn’t related to ranching. It brings the crowd, so bulls are everywhere.

Right when I got back here, I moved back to Evergreen. I was in Fort Collins for seventeen years, and I mentioned being in the Springs for a little. I have my brother here in Evergreen, my nieces, nephews and stuff like that. I thought, “I could use a little bit of 10 degrees cooler temps up here when I get back from travel.”

The thing is, I got back here, and I saw that championship rodeo, the Cervi family, who’s synonymous with a lot of rodeos and been in it for a long time. I say family meaning it’s generationally been handed down, and Mike Cervi has raised a couple of great kids there. They were running what they call Ace High Roughstock Academy out East in Stoneham, Colorado. It was roughly 2 o 2.5 hours East to here.

Is it a school for guys that want to learn how to rodeo?

It’s for kids that want to come out, and they can learn to get on their first saddle bronc or bareback horse. We’re not doing any bulls out there, but I had called up Binion’s wife, Hannah, and said, “Can I come out there and shoot. I know you don’t know me from Adam. Even though I’m from Colorado, I lived here for a while. I met you guys through Cave Creek Rodeo, which you host every year as a stock contractor. I’d love to have the opportunity to come out and shoot with you because, quite frankly, I’m sick of photographing bulls.” Hannah’s like, “Sure.” I get out there and, “Who’s this guy?” It’s ranching. People want to know who’s on their land.

This place is beautiful. When people say out in the middle of nowhere, it’s truly out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s this amazing arena that’s squared off. The rails are all built with old telephone posts. I go, “This is cool, but I don’t even know where to start, but I’ll just start shooting.” I tell people that the arena itself has become a good proving ground for not only myself, who learned to shoot a little bit better. These young athletes are getting on 4, 5, 6, or 7 horses a day. These are also horses that are young colts or mares. The animals and the riders are new. The photographers are learning to find their passion a little bit better.

Granted, Chase is a Hall of Famer. Chase Cervi is a Hall of Fame pick-up man and Randy Britton would come along and does a ton with them. Now he’s pretty much part of that whole family. Those guys are awesome. We even had Taos Muncy, who’s been a world champion, a rider himself, but then he’s out there doing pickup man work. He was amazingly good at it.

It is that sense of community almost.

It’s a proving and training ground for so much. I’m going back to those ethics we’re talking about. It’s very much, “Yes, Ma’am. Yes, Sir.” Doug Champion, who’s been phenomenal at working with athletes and the whole gang that are part of the whole champion living, is teaching and training the up-and-coming rodeo athletes and the current athletes about the importance of proper healthy living and exercise and all that. They’re out there helping out so that these kids are getting on the right track.

Rodeo Photographer: Everybody loves bull riding, but it's probably the one sport in rodeo that wasn't related to ranching.

That’s another misconception with it too. The guys that are doing this at this level now are going to shape as UFC fighters. They’re in incredible shape.

You have to be. I heard somebody say this. It may have even been Doug, but you are your own business. If I got 10 fingers and 10 toes working here and I need the rest of everything else to work and follow in line and sync, it’s about nutrition and taking care of yourself. You’re open for business and you’ve got to take good care of your body versus some of the old-school mentality with rodeo. You can go down the road, drink beers with your buddies, and get those Chesterfields lit up.

I don’t even know if they still make those, but there was that image. What I like to say is you don’t drink and love and fight cowboys. That can still be true, but if you want to make it in the top fifteen nowadays, you have to invest in yourself. You have to invest in your body, both your mind and physically, and you’re going to make a go at it. One of the best things to happen too with rodeo is it is a sexy sport. Look at the fashion when the National Finals Rodeo ended up in Dallas and the Fort Worth area during the COVID.

Is that what happened? They took it out of Vegas.

It’s back in Vegas, but for that one year, it went down. Now granted, the Texans wanted it to stay down there, and they did a hell of a job. I got to go shoot at that arena during the American this last spring, and it’s massive. It’s incredible. I can’t remember if that’s where they did the NFR or not.

They’re next door to each other so it’s a bit confusing.

They are, and then the Ranger is playing in a new stadium now, too. They had it down there in old town Stockyards, Fort Worth, between all the extra new infrastructure that went in there. It’s like the fashion district now. Rodeo is sexy and it has become fashionable. With that have come a lot of endorsements for these athletes too. We used to talk about Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan and all that. Fashion’s fallen into that as well. On the rodeo ends, from hats to boots, these guys are getting endorsed by a lot of companies.

I worked for Monster Energy for quite a while, and I know that they were one of the title sponsors of the PBR. I always wanted to go shoot that because that’s who I used to shoot for a little bit. I never got the call up for that.

It’s high energy.

I’m probably too fat and slow to get out of the way and they knew it.

I was blessed with the opportunity to go shoot a couple of PBRs. Andy Watson, who has been doing it for over 26 years. In terms of the imagery that comes out for the PBR, Andy Watson is one of the forefathers in that. I mentioned it to you. I got the call-up, “Come shoot out here.” I got to do Sacramento with him, and then I went back to Milwaukee, which was cool.

I got to see my older brother, Jeff, and my mom, Diane, back there and hang out with them. Right there where the Bucks play, they were the NBA champion, so it was cool to do that. It was a new experience for me to be on catwalks, set up lighting, and hang from these big catwalks inside the stadium. Andy Watson, as I mentioned, has been doing it for 26 years. For him, it’s like clockwork. He just walks along those things like somebody who was building the Empire State building.

That is pucker factor up there. I cut my teeth in that business and rock and roll and doing rigging and stuff. Those rock and roll riggers, they go out on an I-beam, and they’re 100 feet in the air. There is some safety involved. They’re clipped in and stuff, but they’re pulling these chains up that way. By the time you get 80 feet of chain out of a box, it’s at least 50 or 60 pounds. That’s all they do all day long. They’re savages.

In fact, I shot up in Billings at the Chase Hawks Memorial. It was in the middle of winter. I get into the old arena there, and I apologize to the folks at Billings if I can’t remember the name of the arena. This is my first time having to set up lights on my own. I even called Andy for some advice on it because he normally shoots it, but he had other obligations.

Are you guys setting up lights for the entire show or just for the photography?

It’s for focal pointing on our target audience, which is obviously the event. In this case, Chase Hawks was just saddle bronc, bareback, and bull riding.

Does the camera talk wirelessly to this light, and then it goes off, or is it constantly off?

You have a wireless trigger mechanism on top of your camera. If I’m standing in the arena, there’s a range to it, but that will trigger your lights. You can adjust the strength of the lighting. There’s a science behind it.

There’s a major science that comes behind the flash and so many different things that you can do with it. I’d have never dove into that world.

I think most photographers would agree with me. We’ll take ambient lighting and daytime rodeos or the matinees way over having to have to hang lights and do that. It’s a lot of work and investment too.

It’s not like you’re glorifying walking out there with your two camera bodies and snapping photos. There’s no backend process.

I even asked this time of year. If I get asked to do a certain rodeo, I go, “What time of day does that start? Is it going to be a matinee or is it one of these 7:00 PM-ers where you’re in a timed event earlier.”

You are your own business. You have to take good care of your body versus some old-school mentality with rodeo going down the road drinking beers and smoking cigarettes with your buddies.

I’ve been at some of those night rodeos and it’s hard to watch because you’re talking high school rodeo arenas that have minimal lighting.

They turn on the lights once a year, and maybe a bulb or two works. It certainly presents its challenges, but I learned that right away too. Hockey is not easy to photograph. I don’t think a lot of the readers know that there are lights hanging. Even when I went to Milwaukee and I was walking on the catwalks, there were all these wired mechanisms. There are actual full-bodied, full-frame cameras that are mounted up there that these news teams or other people can come in because they’re there all the time. They just hit a switch and they turned that on. Do a couple of test shots if the lighting strobes are working, their cameras are shooting at the angle they want it, and Sports Illustrated gets their next cover.

There’s probably an in-house photographer or something like that.

I think Andy was trying to explain some of that to me, but I’m too busy still trying not to fall off the catwalk, so I didn’t pay attention anyway. Thank you, Andy, for putting up with me up there. There is a lot of technology behind it and there’s science too. I hope that that knowledge or intellectual property we have up here in our Cabezas is allowed to be able to stick around a little longer. Quite honestly, we’re only three years or less away from probably the cell phone taking care of all of it.

I get more reliant on my cell phone now. To handwrite notes is still something that my brain works best if I have a pin and I see it sitting in front of you. I think you’re the first guy to bring a notepad. Hopefully, I’m not that intimidating.

I was afraid I wasn’t going to have anything to bring up or talk about.

We are already an hour in and we haven’t even touched on where we want to.

We’re struggling.

This is what normally happens. “Maybe we’ll talk about this,” and the next thing you know, two hours have gone by.

We can go back to talking about music.

Me and my buddy Marc Montoya talked about this. He’s one of the most prominent coaches in the UFC. He’s super dialed in and has razor-sharp focus. He has 30 or 40 fighters that he’s keeping track of at training and making sure that they’re on track. He’s in somebody’s corner every weekend, but he’s a handwritten notes guy. What sucks is when you lose your fucking notebook. I’ve been considering getting one of the pins for the iPad or something, but it’s still not the same. Do you listen to Andrew Huberman? Have you ever heard of him? He’s a neurologist’s science guy. He is an old punk rock skater guy, but he has a podcast now.

In one of the podcasts that I was listening to with him, he was talking about the fact that we don’t write in complete sentences anymore. Putting pen to paper is so good for you cognitively as far as an accomplishment, releasing dopamine and certain chemicals in your brain and motor function. Instead of tapping if you’re writing in cursive or something, it’s so much more textile, nerves, receptors, and things that have to happen with your eyes that communicate with your brain.

He’s like, “Basically, we’re getting dumber by sending these texts. People used to mail a letter and you wanted it to be good, especially if you’re writing some hot chick or something like that. You wanted it to sound good so you had to think about it.” Cognitively, that right there is way better for you. I know that you’re smarter than most of the guys.

I probably could have written this in cursive.

That’s pretty nice handwriting.

My parents were school teachers. Dad taught English. Mom taught 7th and 8th-graders, so that covered a lot of topics and subjects. I even asked my own son, “Did they teach you cursive?” He goes, “They did.” I’m like, “Good because they don’t teach that shit anymore.” They don’t have to learn that anymore. I heard that you couldn’t even bring up the Declaration of Independence because kids don’t know how to read cursive. Don’t quote me on it, but I think I’ve heard that, and how sad is that? Writing notes is great. We do lose them. Technology, unfortunately, is our friend and foe because you can write notes now, scan them, and take a picture with it.

I’m going to teach you a little trick here, and I’m in no way sponsored by this company. I’m going to look it up, but this is an app that I came across a few years ago. It’s called Day One. It’s a journal. You can add as many journals as you want to it. I probably have 150 journals that are goals that I’m never going to accomplish, shit for the show, and focus realignment. I have some of them labeled. I’m a psychopath.

You come back to that stuff, though.

I do and it’s all in one spot, but the best part about it is I handwrite a lot of stuff. In this app, it will archive it, give you the location, what the weather was, or whatever, and then you can take a screenshot or a photo of the notes. They’re all right there. I’d gotten in the habit of doing that, and then I’m still getting my handwriting in. It’s great and then you can go back. There are all kinds of backend stuff and it’s $30 a year or something.

That in and of itself is great. You may be putting something in there that is different.

It’s encrypted too, so somebody could just dive into it.

You’re going to come back to that, too. I’ve come across notes and I’m so glad that I didn’t delete them because even that simple little note that I may have typed in it that night or put in, granted I didn’t hand write it, but I may have put it in there, and I’ve gone back to it, it re-inspires those thoughts because it was that important that you put it in there that you can re-enlighten yourself again. It’s like music.

Rodeo Photographer: We have to teach and train the up-and-coming rodeo athletes and current athletes about the importance of healthy living and exercise and helping them get on the right track. 

Music sets the mood. If I’m ready to go crush something like the gym or a mountain or something that I need to do, it’s going to be some death metal playing.

I’m laughing because there’s an occasional note where you might go, “What the fuck was I writing here?” You get that too.

I know exactly what you’re talking about, but this is cool because it keeps track of it all. You can go in and change it and move it from folder to folder or whatever. It’s simple to use. If you get an email, you can attach that. It’s pretty cool.

I love plugging stuff that we use.

If they want to sponsor me, it would be great. I’ve plugged it fucking four times on this thing.

I’ve got a bunch of that. I even talked about BlackRapid and Ron has been great. They’ve said, “You should probably take the next step and be an ambassador for our product.” I think I’ve been ambassadoring for them for a while now. I tagged the shit out of them. My girlfriend was going to yell at me for this one because she’ll tell me to shut up. Don’t try to put a sob story out there, but back in November 2021, all my gear was stolen at The Battle of Bismarck up in Bismarck, North Dakota. Blessed the people up there. They were awesome, and Chad Berger and the family that run all the bulls.

Do you have it insured?

Sadly, I didn’t have it all insured, and it was equipment that was less than six months old. Down in Denver, we’re one of the number one car theft auto places in the country now. I don’t know if you know that, but statistically, we are. A year before that, my truck was stolen down in the tech center. Fortunately, I had all my camera gear with me up in the office I was working at, so I didn’t lose my camera gear then, but when I lost my truck, I never got it back. They found it, but it was after everything had been already settled. I called and wanted to get an independent policy for my camera gear and they said, “You’re going to have to wait.”

“What do you mean I’ve got to wait?” “We could sign you right now, but here’s the thing. If you give it a year with no thefts, no nothing, you’re going to be good to go.” That theft happened in October of 2020. In October 2020, the truck gets stolen. I’ve got to go to October of 2021, and if I’m clear, I’ll get my new policy and have my insurance covered on all my camera gear. It happened and my stuff was stolen.

You have a proper business. We got to talk after the show, but I have an inland marine just because we travel with this. I’m always worried. Sometimes I’m gone and somebody is breaking into here and stealing everything. It’s something that’s concerned me because I got a lot of money invested in that. Sometimes I store my camera gear here, too, because it’s easier than storing it at home. I think I pay maybe $40 a month and I’m covered for $15,000. That’s good for me. If they’d fucking cover it, I’ve never had to put in a claim.

Thank God you haven’t had to, but it makes you a little nervous when you leave. This is the one thing that’s going to kick my ass still to this day. Apple makes those pods.

They were $30. I threw one in my backpack and every time I leave the office, it’ll tell me, “You left your backpack, dumbass, at this fucking this address or whatever.”

The point is I had those. I just didn’t set them up.

Those things are great.

The gear never showed up, and you were asking, “What do I shoot with now?” I converted over from the traditional DSLR mechanical shutter-type stuff or the mirrored to mirrorless.

Are you on a Sony or so something?

I shoot Canon. It’s the same thing as Levi’s to Wranglers and Ford is to Chevy. You start out with it and you generally stick with it, especially when you invest the money that we do in our gear. I was this close to going to Sony because their mirrorless was so good, but then Canon came out with this R5 model that I shoot with right now.

This is the trouble that I have. I still have DSLRs because I’m not doing too much heavy stuff. I haven’t made that jump as much as I want to. All the money is in the glass.

You depreciate your camera bodies in 3 to 5 years or less. I say about 2 to 3 because technology changes.

Are those lenses compatible?

If you switch over to a mirrorless body, Canon made an adapter for it so that your traditional DSLR lenses will convert over. Technically speaking, you might lose a stop or two on them because of that can that converter, but the fact is there are cases where I wish I still had my original glass. I think a lot of it is because Canon always sticks out. After all, they got that white L lens body, and the 70x200 is that one body that you just got to have.

I love my 70x200. It’s my go-to lens.

Rodeo has become a fashionable and sexy sport. With that came a lot of endorsements for these athletes.

It’s great. If you’re shooting at f/2.8, which is sharp and fast, they built that thing in solid-state. In my opinion, there is no other photography genre or sport that’s going to be tougher on its equipment and the owner’s equipment than rodeo. Twelve months out of the year, rain or shine, indoors or outdoors. If you’re somebody like me who shoots in the arena and you’re often running.

They are climbing up fences and they’re probably getting banged off. How much stuff have they broken along the way?

The only thing that I’ve done is on the end of the lens. They make that little exterior like a sun shield or something. It looks cool.

It does help, sometimes.

They do help. I break those all the time. What I did start doing, and again, I’m not sponsored by you guys, but if you want to send stuff my way, AlphaGuard.

Are those the stick-on things?

I started rapping all of my equipment, and I decided to do it when it was brand new.

Do you have some crazy print or something? My buddy Matt Lingo shoots for Clandestine, and another buddy, Half Face Blades is an incredible photographer. You’re going to have to look him up. He’s got Sony Alpha stuff and a notepad. He did them all in multicam black. It looks so fucking cool.

I went with camo on my telephotos, my 70x200, and I have this 100x500. People are looking at me like I’m a wildlife photographer now, “Do you shoot from a duck line or something?” I thought, “Dang it.” A lot of it was because rodeo is so patriotic, and we’re always giving tribute to our soldiers, the people who would defend our country.

There is always like the Elks Club or somebody involved that is a military branch.

I did it out of respect for that. The camera body might match it a little bit, but definitely, AlphaGuard has been one of those where I worry a lot less. Now granted, you might still bang your camera into something, but you’re not going to get that initial mark or that mar that might end up into it. They design it.

I have 200 to 500 or something that I use for shooting elk and stuff like that. I got one of that neoprene. I don’t like it because it’s always sliding around and coming off. Maybe I’ll have to go to the AlphaGuard.

Do it and I’ll see to it that we get you discounted on that too.

I’ve got to get that done before September 2022.

It’s funny you mentioned elk. I don’t know if we’re late this year, but the babies are out with all the cows down here over at the lake.

It was weird because I didn’t see any for a long time. When they’re super newborns, it’s amazing how fast they grow. They have to grow fast enough that when the snow starts falling in October, they can get through it. It’s insane how fast those things grow.

There’s a week-old baby down here just as you come down and the teas and you’re going to go up Upper Bear. I know it’s about a week old because when I saw it. It was probably born the night before. This week alone, it was already crossing the stream between here and the road, and I thought that was cool.

They’re born walking too. We’re so soft.

That horse is bucking out by three weeks. It runs. He does it all and hangs out with his buddies already.

We can send hate mail. We can do that.

It looked like National Geographic Society was down here and somebody was teaching because they’re all photographing these babies and these elk. I came down from Upper Bear where I’m at, and I go, “For those of you interested, all the bachelors who are in velvet right now are just a couple miles up the hill. There are massive bulls right in my driveway.”

My real claim to fame as a photographer is I get published every once in a while in The Bugle. It’s Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Normally, they send me a check and I turned around and put it right back into the membership or just give it back to them. Technically, I was like, “Can you guys keep it?” I’ll donate it. I’m not trying to take your money.” They’re like, “No, we have to,” legally or whatever. They are shooting elk around here and the people that come out. I’ll have a 500 mm lens and be hiding behind my truck. You’ll watch some jackass pull up in a fucking Geo Metro or whatever. I don’t even know if they make those anymore. It’s probably Prius and gets out with a cell phone like nothing’s going to happen. I’m out a lot in September. I’m either elk hunting. We talked about it in the beginning.

Rodeo Photographer: If you want to make it in the top 15 nowadays, you have to invest in yourself both mentally and physically.

You and I were talking about the whole archery thing.

My favorite thing to do is to get up here and run around with my camera in September because the bulls are 300 to 400 class bulls, and they are incredible. You can get 30 feet from them if you want. You could get as close as you want but be sure it’s safe. I’ve had moments where I’ve been up shooting them on the golf course and stuff. I’ve walked up on the golf course, and the next thing I know, I’m in between three bulls without even knowing it. I think I’d rather be in the way of a rodeo bull instead because those things put their heads down and they go.

That’s a good point. I would agree with you. You can move away from a bull.

They clip their horns every once in a while.

If you watch the bullfighters, they get as close as they can before they turn and shift. That bull keeps going.

The bullfighters now are fucking amazing. They are so incredible. I was watching something before you came in.

You’re going to say, Cody Webster?

No, it’s a younger kid. I think he’s an up-and-comer, Blake Miller. Do you know this guy?

I don’t know him personally, but I’ve watched some of his stuff.

He’s constantly posting shit like this. They’re freaking amazing.

They do get after it hard, but like anything else, they’re training.

I don’t know about all of his hair videos, but Blake, if you want to come in, we’d love to have you in and talk some bullfighting.

These guys that are doing it are unbelievable. Again, you could probably throw 8 to 10 names out there right now that are phenomenal and getting after it. Again, they’re as important. They’re so critical to it. I don’t think people realize how critical they are to making that bull think twice before running.

There is a video of Blake I was watching. Somehow he followed us on TikTok. I’m new to the whole TikTok thing. My daughter is like, “You got to get on TikTok or whatever.” Luckily, I have some social people that are helping me out, but I went through there. We have zero followers on there or whatever. Blake is one of the guys that followed us or something. I was checking out the people that were checking us out. I went to his page, and it was amazing.

The first video I see is him literally putting himself in between this cowboy that’s down and this 2,000-pound bull. He gets picked up and rocked back up against the shoots. It’s solid steel, those shoot doors or whatever they are. He gets slammed in that, and the bull comes back around with its whale tail and stomps the shit out of him. It was all to get the bull rider out of the way. He didn’t need to be there.

It’s interesting, too, because you reminded me of the fact that one of the biggest misconceptions is that bulls are inherently mean. They’re trained athletes. You can train to kick ass. They’re in great shape. They eat their diets better than most athletes. My brother, Brian, invested in some bulls with Chad Berger, who’s synonymous with rodeo. Not only in the PBR but even in the PRCA. In fact, I think they have one of the top five bulls out there right now named Pookie Holler. You brought it up.

Names are great too.

They are phenomenal. That’s a survey horse now. We care about these animals a lot, and people think, “For sure you do.” I know my brother was cutting a big check for the 3 or 4 bulls that he has over there with Chad. I paid to feed him one night. We were taking care of these athletes. They’re doing well. I’m not saying we’re rubbing him down with Sake or any of that, but the point is the animal is just as well as respected as an athlete.

Every year at this time of year, we’re in cowboy Christmas or on the verge of it. Cowboy Christmas, meaning we got rodeos happening within every town within 100 square miles in most Western towns right now all through July, the Montanas, Californias, and Utah. I’ll go to Vernal, Utah and I get to shoot out there with Lexi Christopher and Brooks Benjamin. The two people I’ve grown fond of in the PRCA photography world. These athletes are hitting 3 or 4 rodeos in a weekend.

How does that work on your end? Do you get called up by a particular organization? I know that there are all these associations and different governing bodies of circuits and stuff like that. Also, the individual rodeos that are making their own money or whatever they are.

A good example is an Evergreen rodeo is a PRCA rodeo. It’s a PRCA-sanctioned recognized rodeo. I apologized to my folks of Evergreen. We’re small beings in the eyes of some rodeos, but we still are a well-recognized rodeo a long-time. We’re a long-standing rodeo. We were in our 58th year in 2022 or somewhere in that ballpark. Nevertheless, as a photographer who wants to shoot professionally in the rodeo, the PRCA, it’s not just, “Fill out this form and pay $100.”

We, PRCA photographers, pay the same amount annually as an athlete for our members or our cards. I had to go through the same thing as an amateur where you get your permit and you have to do so many rodeos. You have to turn in a portfolio of events that you’ve shot, get graded on it, judged on it, do the arena evaluation, and then maybe you’ll get on board. Bot to mention, you have to have letters of recommendation.

Writing notes is great. Technology, unfortunately, is our friend and foe because you can write notes now and scan them or take a picture. 

This is the professional level of rodeo, right?

Exactly but it is cool to say, “I took steps to get to this,” and it gives me the opportunity to say, “I want to go shoot that rodeo. I want to go to this one now.” I have the credentials to say, “I’ve earned the rights to be able to go into the arena and shoot that.” That doesn’t guarantee you can do it. You still want to have your relationships with the rodeo committees, no matter what town you go to. Fortunately, because I live here, I’m tight with our rodeo committee. Vernal will be my first time shooting out there but I hope that it’s a good, warm welcome there. I’m excited to be able to shoot with my other colleagues.

There are some rodeos where you might be the only photographer. As far as I know, I’m still doing The War Bonnet Round Up in Idaho Falls in August 2022, turning around, coming back, and shooting at Yuma, Colorado. These are things that weren’t open to me prior to being a PRCA photographer. The opportunities are presenting themselves. The paycheck is probably not so much. They’re getting a lot better at supporting us.

Do a lot of your photos go to publications, websites, or social media?

I have an example here. This was at the Riggin Rally down in Weatherford, Texas. This is the regular monthly publication. They call it the PRN or ProRodeo Sports News.

This is something that the cowboys are getting in to figure out where to go.

What you see here is an example of a picture that they published of mine at Mason.

That’s a big spread too. It’s over a full page or a page and a half.

It’s not something that you wake up to, and all of a sudden, you’re going to have a check in the mail for $1,000 or something. This is probably only $150 or something, but it is cool to know that you are getting recognized for your work. There are some photographers and some are just phenomenal to me. There’s so much talent that is out there.

I was asking my friend, Click. I said, “How many photographers are there in the PRCA?” He said, “I don’t know for sure.” I said, “With that in mind, how many are truly active?” We’ve figured there’s probably maybe about 80. There are probably twenty-plus names that stick out. Those seem like they’re at every rodeo. They’re always in this publication and getting recognized for their work. I wanted to do that this year. I thought for sure, “2022, here we go. I’m going to hit up my minimum rodeos because, as the athletes, as I mentioned, we pay the same amount to be a member annually. I can get fine too if I no show, I screw up, or interfere with a ride.

You have to put in an application like, “I’m going to this particular spot, town, or event.”

Generally, what you’ll do is you will you let the PRCA know on a weekly level.

We are doing a deep dive, but I’m genuinely curious about that.

I had to learn too. Nobody shows you the ropes on this stuff, by the way. That’s the shitty part about it.

For the wannabe rodeo photographers out there, pay attention.

We’re going to get better at it, just like anything else. The communications are going to get better, I think the reason I’m a late bloomer when it comes to being a PRCA photographer because I was discouraged from it for so long. There was always this underwritten good old boy connection, “This is my rodeo. Don’t you dare come shoot that? You can’t just come walking in here.”

In a lot of ways, this dates back to the Chris LeDoux days of selling your music out of the back of your car or you’re selling your photos. You’re saying, “I got this shot. I’ll see you down at the next rodeo and I’ll have your pictures for you,” but the digital age has changed a lot of that. That doesn’t mean we want to take anything away from those who have been there doing it for the last 20 or 30 years. The difference, in my opinion, is that an extra set of eyes is always good to have in the arena.

When I shot Evergreen in 2022, Lexi came up there and Jesse was up there shooting. Jesse was there in 2021. A lot of people go, “Are you okay with it?” I go, “Heck yeah, I am. Why wouldn’t I want an extra set of eyes there or an extra viewpoint? You’re all professional enough that you have something to share.” What if I do miss that one ride? Maybe something went wrong with my camera or I was distracted by a pretty girl in the crowd, and I didn’t get the shot. There is that deal. I’m all about that, but that didn’t use to exist. There was this, “No. This is my rodeo. I own it. I have the rights to it,” because we have to turn our images into the PRCA within 48 hours.

Do they vet it or do they post-edit your photos?

You try to shoot as well as you can right off the bat. Maybe do some straightening and a little bit of cropping, but try to keep it in its original format as much as possible. Now, for those of you who do follow my Instagram or even look at it, you’re going to see a lot of it. There is no doubt, and I don’t deny it, that I do some post-processing, but I try to bring attention to my work that way.

There’s a whole other art form in that with Matt Lingo. That’s one of the things that he is so fucking good at. To the Photoshop level, he can have a 1960s Chevy sitting there with a UFO over it. That picture is clear as day of you sitting there and there’s an alien in the background. It’s so mind-blowing. He’s incredible.

What you can do with Adobe and Photoshop is amazing.

Rodeo Photographer: You depreciate your camera bodies in three to five years or less because the technology changes.

Even in Lightroom like I do it with some of my photos. I contrast. It’s super simple to run. It’s part of the art form now, especially in this digital age.

There are local painters here that reach out to me that have said, “Can I get permission to paint this because I can’t be in the arena like you, but your work gives me the opportunity to be able to paint this.” I’ve got several that I work with here, both locally. It’s an honor because I think painting is still one of the coolest things around.

Do you go to the cowboy at some point, or do you own all the rights to this? Is there any backlash on that end of like, “I’m portrayed in this painting now?”

I think most cowboys, at least from the ones that I photograph, and you’ll see. You’ll get my occasional top fifteen years in there if I happen to be at that type of rodeo, but a lot of my work is of the amateurs. A lot of it is out at the Ace Academy. They absolutely love it. The parents love it. The great Terri Abrahamsen, who was one of the people who signed one of my letters of recommendation to get into the PRCA, we met out at the Ace Academy a few years ago.

When I knew I needed a letter of recommendation, I said, “Terri, if you don’t mind. I’m not calling you to say, ‘Will you write this letter for me.’” She said, “Mike, I saw the way that you work. I saw what you do. I know you have love, appreciation, and passion, not only for photography but for rodeo itself. Yes, I’ll do that letter.” She told me a while back when we first met, “You have that opportunity to capture a moment in history. There’s always that one elusive shot that you hope you might get.” I hope some of these guys that are in some of my pictures were or still are amateur. We’re going to look back years from now and they’re on their path to being in the Hall of Fame. How cool would that be?

Also, have one of your photos in there to portray that. These are great. It’s amazing what these guys’ bodies go through. To freeze that, you can’t capture that with your eye. I think that’s one of the coolest things about the digital age and some of this processing now. As much as I love 35 mm film, I’ve taken a photo of my daughter before. I can zoom in close enough and I can see my reflection in her eye. It’s insane.

As I said, technology is our friend and foe, too because you look at all the amazing pictures. Let’s date ourselves back to the Ansel Adams stuff. That stuff is phenomenal. It’s amazing. Can you imagine what he would have done with this nowadays’s technology? The black and whites, to me, are great.

I love black and white.

I love it too. Even on one of my websites, I do black and white and I post it because people have always said, “You do great black and white.” That’s not me doing the black and white. I didn’t intend to take it as black and white. It’s post-process to be black and white. That’s something that I have to be clear about because Ansel Adams shot in black and white.

I never thought about that. That’s not true. I have a bunch of stuff from high school that I got to go into a light room. This was before the digital age.

I’m not classically trained like those who’d got to do the darkroom stuff.

It was awesome and I enjoyed it. It was one of the only classes I enjoyed in high school.

There’s a whole grassroots thing on that to appreciate and bring that back.

What’s funny is I’ve taken some digital classes too. One of the teachers that I had was old school and he made our cover-up. It reads the aperture and the f-stop and everything. You could look at that little display, but you couldn’t look at the digital display, and you had to shoot 37 or 36 images. It used to be 35 images or 32 on a roll, but you could get 37 out of it. They might not turn out right because the film was at the end. If there’s a crease in it or something, it would be all fucked up. He made us do that with our DSLRs and you had to present your project that way. It was the fact of teaching you composition. You know just as well as I do when you get into that editing process and you’re on rapid fires.

It’s interesting because you talked about hunting a lot. I got that mentality a while back, even with rodeo and rough stock.

Are you rapid firing on a lot of these shots?

I’m shooting at a higher shutter speed. My camera offers the opportunity to shoot at 20 frames per second. It’s a silent shutter, but it’s miserable. The reason I say that is I would rather miss shots than have to go back and pull up all the shots.

I try to anticipate animal behavior.

You shoot like a hunter. I would rather miss a shot. I miss more shots than I get. There were some in Evergreen where I tightened up my focal point. I wanted to get the athlete and the animal and then pull that background and blur that out. With that, I ran the sacrifice. If you didn’t make the adjustment for it, you might end up focusing on something else instead of that.

It all happened so fast. You have eight seconds total to photograph something.

If I ever teach a school someday and we get out in the arena and shoot as I Iike it, are you kidding me? I learn when I go to these things anyway, even when I went down to Fort Worth and shot with the Click.

We should get together and do it. You live right here. If you should come out in September 2022, I’ll take you to all the cool elk spots. I’m sure that you’ve already been out here. It’s hard to find elk in Evergreen.

There's no other photography genre or sport that's going to be tougher on its equipment than rodeo.

I would love that, and maybe we can get an athlete to get on one of the elk too. It’s interesting. You’re going to get an opportunity to shoot multiple frames, fast shutter type of shots. What I want you to do on this next bull, next horse, or any one of the eight events is time it. It gives you the opportunity to set up on a single barrel, but you get one shot. What are you going to do? When are you going to do it? I want to see the misses because you only had one shot.

It makes you so much better. It makes the quality of your photos better, too, because if you’re framing the photo and there’s no cropping involved, you have the full raw image. That’s the best lesson I learned trying to time a shot and only having 37 shots. What if you went into a rodeo arena with two rolls of film and you had to come out.

Terri, who I mentioned earlier, is one of the first real true ladies in rodeo as a professional photographer. There are a bunch more out there who can vouch for this, but they would process in the back of their vehicle or go home at night and set up a dark room in their vehicle. In any given rodeo, it’s not over when it’s over. Everybody gets to go home. Athletes go down the road. We’ve got anywhere from 8 to 10 hours of processing.

If you’re somebody like me, I’m slow. I care a lot about my work, and I’m not saying nobody else cares, but for some reason, I care way too much about what I’m putting out there. I like to put good material out there. It’s like that saying, “If offered a ride on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” Look at this kid. He’s vertical. The horse is vertical and looks at the main on that horse.

That’s a great quote. For the photo, it is amazing.

If I had a nickel all the time, people say, “How do they tie their nuts up?” Eighty percent of the bucking horses are mares so good luck finding that set of nuts that you’re looking for down there. Secondly, look at the flank strap. That’s padded straps. All the pickup man does is go by and flicks that belt and the thing drops. The horse quits bucking.

They have done it before. They’ve shown that these animals will buck even without the flying strap. We take damn good care of those animals. They’re not probably conveyed so much in my Instagram, but if you go to some of my other photos in MichaelPintar.art, you’ll see where I’ve documented the management of the animals out when they’re turned out at the ranch or at service. There are beautiful pictures of these horses that will eat out of your hand. There is 900-plus head of horses out there that are healthy, not undernourished. They’re fed and managed well. My regular site is Pintargraphy. Unfortunately, I’ve been trying to navigate this stuff better to make it work. Right now, I happen to have two sites.

You have a wicked photo of that bison.

That shot was actually in Yellowstone.

That is so awesome going up there to shoot. I’ve been up there a couple of times.

Do you want me to hear something interesting about that bison right there? I think I shot that one. It might even be the very bison, but the day after that, the one that you talk about people with their cell phones getting too close, that was that same spot.

It’s zero fear or zero common sense. Even a zoo animal, I wouldn’t walk into a zoo cage. Is that a night photo?

It’s a daytime photo that I metalized a little bit. You talk about post-processing, but it’s called Painted Moonlight because it was just this gorgeous paint walks across a field in Montana.

You should put that one in here.

That would be a cool one to put in here. I might have that for you. I might be dropping that one-off.

No freebies. We’ll buy it.

The point is I’m learning to be able to put art out there now.

That was one of my next questions. Do you primarily only shoot rodeo? Every photographer has got a side gig, right?

For sure, but I want to say that photography was always a side gig. I’ve never really taken ownership of it as a photographer until lately. I’ve worked in animal health-related sales for fifteen years in the pharma, and I was running around the country initially selling an FDA-approved antibiotic for horses that we manufactured in Fort Collins. It seemed every 2 to 3 years.

Did you go to school for agricultural business or anything like that?

No. I went to school in Milwaukee and then dropped out after my son was born. It was too hard to have two bartending gigs, a part-time supervisor job at UPS, and then raising a young one. I knew I’d go back to school. I was the only one in my family without even an undergrad up until my late 30s. I’m aging myself, but the fact is I went back. I did my undergrad at CSU and then went back and did my Master’s. I did an MBA at CSU as well. I don’t know why I felt that obligation to do it.

How long have you been doing this full-time then? When did you take that leap of faith and like, “I’m all in.”

Rodeo Photographer: You may have the credentials to go into the arena and shoot, but that doesn't guarantee you can do it. You still want to have relationships with the rodeo committees, no matter what town you go to.

You asked if I’m a business. I think I created Michael Pintar Photography in about 2016 with enough encouragement or lack of income to go, “Can I make a living at this? Can I continue to try to do that?” It sounds crazy, but we’ve always heard about the saying starving artist. I am a true starving artist.

I think we are. It’s not like this show makes so much money. I still have to say yes to what I do, but fortunately, when people ask me what I do, it’s so hard to explain to the average person. It’s always on a fucking airplane.

That’s the truth when you’re trying to sleep.

Do you not see these Beats headphones? I’m trying not to hang out with anybody right now. I’m hanging over, but I found that this is not the right way to answer the question either. Sometimes, I straight up lie. I don’t lie very often, but sometimes I’m just like, “I’m an accountant. I’m a gynecologist,” or whatever it is. I’ll give them some oddball bullshit, but typically, my answer is I get paid to hang out with cool people. I get to hang out with cool people on the show and then all the shows that I go out and do on the rock and roll side. It’s being around brothers or family. Everybody is so cool. It’s like the rodeo camaraderie.

There are photographers, as I said earlier, that are getting after it. They’re well-known. They get actually, “So-and-so going to be shooting this rodeo. Hopefully, they are.” I thought about that a little bit before. I thought, “Thanks to gas prices such-and-such. I’m not being able to set out and hit the road as hard as I thought I would in 2022.”

I don’t want to say up and comers, but they’re leaders in the industry now. They’re also technologically savvy. They are good at social media and so on, but in my case, I’m hoping that if I do get asked to do a certain rodeo, it’s because of the work that I’m putting out there. Maybe a little less mass production, but more quality. If I’m that saddle bronc rider or even if I’m that tie-down Roper or barrel racer and I know that Michael Pintar is coming to my town to shoot this rodeo, by chance, they might get that elusive shot that we’re hoping that we can get sometimes. That’s my goal in a lot of my work.

It’s why I’ve started to go, “Maybe there’s an artistic side to this as well.” Hopefully, that would be something that pays the bills. It can hopefully happen. They say you got to believe in yourself. You’ve mentioned doing other photography. It’s true. I do shoot and I did the portraits. I even did some weddings here and there. I love impromptu weddings, but other than that, I don’t want to deal with brides. They’re tough. I got asked to do one in Texas here in Austin. I’ll shout out to your real soon if I can do that or not. The thing is, you have to have a medium, and so rodeo has become that for me.

You’re so good at it.

Thank you.

I enjoy looking at your stuff and I highly urge anybody that’s reading this to at least go check out the website. If there’s something cool there, help support artists. We talked about this a lot. Help support the arts as much as you can. I’ve tried to the best of my ability, and I think it’s important. It’s good stuff to have around. How cool are these images to look at? I enjoy looking at your page and my buddy Matt Lingo’s page. My buddies over at Clandestine. I love seeing all these different interpretations.

All the rock and roll photographers that have helped me out in my life, like Chad Martel and some of these guys. They are fucking incredible. You know what’s crazy about shooting some of those big rock shows is there would be photographers lined up in the pit. There are 30 or 40 running around, especially if it’s a festival event. There’s so much media there. It’s incredible. You also have the band photographers on top of it. They go back and look at that event, and all the diversity and different types of composition and art forms are mind-blowing.

They’re standing next to the same photographer, shoulder to shoulder. They’re going to have a different look. Here’s the thing. Are we ever going to get to the point where we will make money while we’re alive? I saw a documentary the other day of somebody that was capturing all these phenomenal classic pictures, but that person’s been long gone. This photographer and the value went sky high.

Digging deep here and going a little bit deeper, is it really for the money? It’s not why you’re doing this. It’s for passion and creating that.

I hate to put it that way. Money is nice. It would be great to have an incredible living at doing this, but you can’t replace the amount of time that you had put into this or stopping that moment in time. The passion, nobody can purchase that. I don’t care how much money they give you for your photo. I think that there’s a little bit deeper side to that.

We had Mark and some of the songs that he’s writing and stuff. This is a guy that could go on tour all over the world and could be blown up. We talked about it a little bit off camera. I’m like, “How are you not fucking in this slide?” He doesn’t want to be. He wants to play mountain towns in the most beautiful places around the world. He goes to the Alps. He stays in Colorado. He drives a 1980s pickup truck by choice, which is cool, and it has got a tape duct in it.

He’s rocking whaling and stuff. It’s the way he is. One of the songs that he sang was something along the lines of freedom, time, his connection with nature, and what it means to him. It was perfect the way it was put together. I bet that there’s no other place you’d rather stand than be in that rodeo arena with your camera.

You get fired up for it. I mentioned before growing up with athletics and all that. I get as much energy from going in there and saying, “I got to bring my A-game tonight.” I’ve always thought it’s nerdy, the whole thing, the camera or the art thing.

That’s rockstar-ish in my eyes. I’ve always looked up to photographers, but people see you walking around with a big ass fucking lens, and they start asking questions, “Who is this guy?” I think everybody aspires, especially nowadays, to be a photographer. They think that they can be with their iPhones and stuff.

Good luck when it comes time for printing. I always tell people that. You may have gotten what you think is a great picture but start zooming in, and you go, “That’s pixelized.”

When you can see an individual hair in your beard or mustache, that’s how you know you have a good camera.

In the world of sports photography, I didn’t know I was going to do sports. I thought I was going to do landscape and portrait. My first camera was a 50-megapixel DSLR. I set it up on a tripod and take that beautiful mountain scene. “Hello, Ansel Adams. I’m the next guy.” I then started getting in the arena, and I go, “My max is on this, even with a high-speed card, is seven frames per second. I better learn to start shooting like a hunter.” You can’t spray and pray at that speed but I did get those pictures, the one that I am going to be doing a giveaway on.

It was one of the first pictures of John Hetzel’s bull down in Arizona of War Dog. I love this bull. This bull had this great character to him. He would run at you and then you hit the brakes right at the last second. If you didn’t move, that bull would stop, and you’d be eye-to-eye with each other. It was awesome. I got a picture of War Dog, but what I started noticing was when you’re shooting at that megapixel rate, you got hairs just popping off this animal. As the sun’s hitting it, you got hair everywhere.

An extra set of eyes is always good to have in the arena.

That’s why I love going back and looking at these elk. I’ll zoom in on their nose and see the steam coming out of it. It’s stuff that you can’t see with your eye, like my reflection in my daughter’s eye.

You can argue with me until you’re blue in the face if you’re somebody who just wants to keep it as raw as possible, “I don’t post-process. I don’t do that.” That’s fine. Everybody can do whatever they want to do with their arts.

It’s art. Normally, most of those people that do that aren’t that good at photography.

At least respect it from whatever their viewpoint was of that artist that did that at that moment.

It’s so funny because my buddy, Matt Lingo, whom I was telling you about, took this awesome photo of a mutual friend of ours. He was giving him a rash and a shit because he reposted it on Instagram, but then he threw a filter over it. He was like, “Nashville, huh? My post-editing is not good enough for you. You got to put an Instagram filter on top of it?”

I love how people talk about filters. I know what a filter is, but I love when people go out of their way to say, “No filter.” It’s a way you to oversaturate it with whatever settings you already had on there.

It’s so incredible too what you can do with a photo. There are so many YouTube videos out there and stuff to learn how to do these amazing things.

Video is important too. I have the technology, even with my cameras right now, provided I put the right card in there, which we’re talking $500-memory cards. I could put those in there, do video, stop it on the frame that I want, and create the same images you see here. That’s what I could start doing.

That’s pretty insane.

There are people doing it out there already. Veeder out in California does it. They did amazing videography.

You just videotaped the whole thing, but it’s in this high res.

They’ll buck out bronc even at their school and the other guy will run along with it. Image, body stabilization, lens stabilization, whatever they’re using, I still haven’t asked them. I can’t wait to. I hope I get invited to come out there. I’m going to ask him to come out and watch what they do because I’m impressed with their work. They’ll run alongside that animal as it’s bucking out in that rider. At the same time, you’re in school. What a great way to learn if your technique is good.

If you’re sitting in where you want to be, if you’re riding that horse, I don’t have all the right terminology. I didn’t get to ride broncs, but the point is what a great learning tool too. I can slow this down frame by frame and show you where your feet are, where your body is, where your hand is, where your eyes are, where your head is. Also, still that and make a pic from it. I think I’m going to start doing that. I just have to learn how. I don’t think I’m going to work on that.

We’ll go chase some of those baby elk around.

Let’s go do that.

Spending that much time in the arena, you’re in the actual rodeo arena more than anybody that’s out there, like the pickup man and the cowboys. The longer you’re in there, the more close calls you’re probably going to have. It’s only a matter of time.

I prefer to be close. One, you can frame it in, but again, you do run the risk of not getting all the shots that I do know. I run the risk. If there’s something that comes out, especially with some of the horses, they’re going to come out, come out of that gate, and be hard-charging. Usually, you get a really good shot within the first few frames but there have been close calls. At Evergreen, when they had their second set of bulls come out on Sunday, Binion Cervi and Randy Britton and even Chase all came up to me and said, “Mike, we know you like to shoot within 10 to 15 yards, but watch out for this first bull coming out. It likes to turn and come right down to the fence line.”

These guys got to know what their bulls do.

Most bulls have a certain behavior pattern.

I remember back in the day, with some of the guys I was running around with, you would go and talk to the other guy, and they were like, “This bull typically comes out and turns to the right. I’ve seen him do this. Everybody’s talking to each other for information.”

It is. They do have their characteristics and their personalities, but even that one that we thought we had to worry about on that Sunday was probably one of the tamest bulls in there. He came out, bucked hard, obviously sent his rider sky high and did his thing, but it didn’t turn back on any of us. It didn’t come down to the side towards me. I still respected what the contractor told me.

Do bull fighters save the photographers, or is it only the cowboy?

Rodeo Photographer: Try to shoot as well as you can right off the bat. Maybe do some straightening or a little bit of cropping, but try to keep it in its original format as much as possible.

I spoke highly of you bullfighters, but I don’t think they give a shit about us, but they always want good pictures of themselves doing their job. That was one of the things, too, and I apologize to Mr. Napier and Harris. We had so many guys get bucked up. I didn’t get to get a lot of post-rides bullfighting on there for you guys. That’s one thing I’ve learned to stick around and try to get a little bit more, but the longer you stick around, the more you run the risk, especially with bulls.

There’s also that deer in the headlights because you’re behind the lens. I’ve lost track of shit. That time, I got pinned down by three elk basically, and I was running around a tree.

Your sense as you think they’re up, but you’re almost tunnel visioning. It’s like bow hunter. I shoot with both eyes open as much as I can so that my peripheral is doing something. With bulls, bull riding is awesome. It’s not as exciting to me because there’s always that elusive shot I keep talking about, but most times, they’re going to be spinning right in front of the shoots. A lot of action there, but where do I scramble to when that rider is bucked off or the ride is over?

That is when the bull is looking for the next.

A lot of them are looking for the exit shoot. They’re trained. They know where they’re going, but horses are great. I didn’t know this at first, but generally, if it’s a bull from a photographer’s standpoint, if you’re shooting the arena, you look for a rail to try to get up on that and get out of the way with horses. Generally, you want to go to the middle of the arena or try to walk towards the middle of the arena because they run the fence. The pickup man is coming along there. You don’t want to be that guy sitting there.

That’s a bad spot to be in.

For example, when I’m up in Vernal. I’ll let those stock contractors know. We probably never worked together before. Depending upon where they want me to shoot, we got a couple of us there, so I don’t know where I’m going to be shooting, but if I am in the arena, I’ll let them know, “I swim at my own risk in this arena. If I get in your way or if you want me to be somewhere else, just tell me. Let’s get that relationship established right out of the gate because the last thing I need to do is be in your way while you’re trying to save a rider’s life, catch that guy, or take care of that. I’ll get the images one way or the other no matter where I’m at, but as an introduction of Michael Pintar to you, I do like to shoot in the arena.

You’re a wild guy. You pick the wild subject. I don’t think the average photographer can go out there with their tripod.

No tripods. If I set up a tripod in there, I’m in deep shit, “Don’t run over my tripod.” Again, I think a lot of us now try to get as close as we can, but we’ll shoot on the ground. Ground-level is the best. I’ve had people tell me, “There’s that catwalk above. How come you never shoot from there? There’s this upper angle that you can shoot from. How come you never shoot from there?”

Your perspective is not as good.

That’s getting out of the way beforehand. These are some old pics right there.

That is a great picture of bison. I have a fascination with bison. It’s a bucket list hunt for me.

They are so wild. That’s an example of those who are all bucking horses. When I was displaying art, I was down at a horse show, a polo event/hunter jumper event. I had art displayed for the first time. I’d never set up a booth before, but I put these pictures up, and most people are like, “All those horses are beautiful.” I said, “Did you also know that those are rodeo horses?” “Really?” Now, I’ve got their attention. I call that the usual suspects, and these mares are all standing there.

Are those telephone poles you were telling me about?

You can look at some of them still have the old metal plating on them. You can tell where they pulled spikes out, the spikes have been cut off, or things like that. There is nothing that’s going to harm the animal but what I mean is there’s history in these poles. There’s that one of War Dog. He was a cool bulldog and the sunlight was hitting perfectly. This is something that took me a while to do.

You can zoom in on it too.

You can even enlarge it even more down on the bottom there if you click on to enlarge, but it’s one of those things where I was learning to go, “How do I make it so that people can buy this without me?” If I’m on the road, they don’t have to wait 72 hours for me to guard. I’ll get to that and send it. I can do all the fulfillment through this now. Art storefronts have been interesting to me because it’s like having a personal trainer.

You spend the money to build the website. It was out of my own pocket, but they stay on top of you. They got a dedicated marketing team that says, “You haven’t been on here for a month. You haven’t added new images for printing. What do we get to do because we’re only as good as you are, so let’s help you do this.”

It helps them. It generates the business, and you learn things. I’ve got to put a Reel up. That’s one of the things that’s one of my greatest weaknesses. Maybe I have a bunch of photos on Instagram. They say, “You got to get more personal about yourself. People want to see a little bit more of you. Who is the artist?”

The Reels are crazy. I’ve mixed emotions about it. We started doing it with the show because it’s crazy. Some of them I think are going to do well, and I don’t create them. I have to be 100% honest with you. We have a full production team now that’s partnered with the show. It’s been good. It’s freed me up so I can do more content, and they’re creating more content of what we’re getting in here, which then highlights the guests even better. It’s for people to see but I was shocked. I posted a Reel and it went to 10,000 views in 20 minutes or something.

It was something that I didn’t think was that interesting. It was interesting, but I thought that we had a lot more interesting conversations during the show. I urge anybody that sees one of those Reels. Go read the entire show because there’s no better form. I keep saying this, and I’ve been thinking about it. Social media is so short and so many short posts and stuff, but to learn about somebody, this long-form conversation.

Think about how much we’ve talked about it, how much I’ve learned about you, and how awesome your job is. Also, all the cool people that you know, the shout-outs that you’ve given, and the experiences in your life. We could just keep going. I think that that’s why podcasting is doing so well, too.

If offered a ride on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get on.

I do agree with that. There’s actual eye-to-eye contact. The point is, I do believe that it brings back some of the essences of true conversation.

I flip my phone over because it went off, but you’re not picking up your phone or anything. You’ve taken a couple of notes there. We’ve done two hours and we’re going to go ahead and shut this thing down because I’m sure you still do what you got to do, but you’re welcome back anytime. I had a great time with you. This has been super cool. I appreciate you coming in. I love your art. Before we jump off real quick, what do you got coming up? Do you have any events coming up? Do you teach any classes or anything?

I’m going to get to the point where it’s time to partner up with another photographer and teach a class.

Sign me up. I’ll be one of your first students.

For the Cervi family, if you read this, it would be great if I was able to tie in some of that out there at one of the schools because, again, it is truly a proving ground for so much. I would love to do a school. In terms of rodeos, I did mention that I pulled back the reins quite a bit, but I’ll be up in Vernal, Utah at the Dinosaur Roundup, which is on the 6th or 7th and 8th. I’m probably going to try to dump off into Steamboat on my way back and do a Sunday Night in Steamboat. That rodeo runs all summer long. That’s a PRCA rodeo. Every weekend, June through July and into August.

I didn’t realize that.

If you were a permit holder, you could go up and try to start earning enough money to get your card. It is a wonderfully ran rodeo. It’s awesome, and the lighting’s good for a photographer.

What an amazing town and place.

I hope the Yampa is up.

I haven’t done any fly fishing this 2022. It’s crazy

Sadly, I haven’t either and I love it.

I could kick my own ass right now.

I’ll be doing that. These are a couple of first-timers for me. I’m doing Vernal, and then the War Bonnet Round Up and Idaho Falls. I’ll then come back and do Yuma Colorado. The big rodeos are coming up or are already happening. Greeley is happening, and your Cheyenne and Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo. Reno just finished. Reno is massive. I do love the small-town rodeos. The ever-elusive shot is in some of those rodeos.

It means you get that athlete that comes through and maybe breaks a new record, but all the photographers want to shoot the big ones. Maybe I was there to get that other one. I do want to shoot the big ones. We do have to qualify for the NFR, just like an athlete will. You get voted in as a photographer. I would love to do the NFR someday, but for now, I’ll stick to the path I’m on and hopefully keep producing good work from wherever I may show up.

I urge anybody to go follow you, especially if you have a Western background or are interested in rodeo art or anything like that. I’m not much of a rodeo guy, but I enjoy looking at your photos. It’s man versus beast right there.

Thank you so much.

Go give Mike a follow. What is your Instagram handle, and do you have multiple?

Everything for me starts out on Instagram. Usually, I’ll send those pictures right over to Facebook because Facebook owns Instagram. For my regular rodeo imagery, it’s my last name, @Pintargraphy. If you type in Michael Pintar Photography, you’re going to find it, or if you type in Michael Pintar. On the animal health end, as I mentioned, I have a background in animal health sales. I go out and try to work with veterinarians in the field or at animal hospitals. I’ve even done some sponsorship things from some of the big pharma companies, where it’s a value add. They’ll send me to that vet practice. I’ll go work with the veterinarians and photograph them, everything from in-practice shots, in-field shots to new headshots, to all that stuff. I’m trying to grow that business. I think it’s a good way to be able to tie the two together. That one is @AniHealthImagery. My website is Pintargraphy.com.

They can purchase those prints there. I highly encourage you to go check out Michael Pintar Art.

It will say Shop Art on my regular website and that will take you right to this stuff. Thank you.

This has been a lot of fun. We’ll see around town. Let’s go shoot together.

Let’s do it.

Rodeo Photographer: The longer you stick around, the more you run the risk, especially with the bulls. 

Do you mean cameras or animals? Do you shoot a bow?

I love bow hunting.

We’re going to do both then. When I say I’m out shooting animals, typically, it’s with my camera. I’m a big Archer too. I shot 40 targets up at American Bowman.

I say I’m big on it. It’s been a few years, but I can get back into it.

There is no shame.

Cameron Hanes, if you read this, come on out. I need some work buddy.

Thanks, Mike.

I appreciate.

Thanks, everybody for reading.

—

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• MichaelPintar.art

• BlackRapid

• AlphaGuard

• Pintargraphy

• @Pintargraphy - Instagram

• @AniHealthImagery – Instagram

• www.UnCanna.com

• www.ONNIT.com

• www.OriginMaine.com

About Michael Pintar

I did not harness a desire for creating art through photography until being gifted my first camera over a decade ago.

In 2015, I started shooting professionally, including recently becoming a PRCA photographer.

As for rodeo, the July 2020 BlackRapid Spotlight, entitled ‘Bulls Won’t Pay the Bills’, shares how my longtime respect for rodeo generates the imagery I seek for capturing the spirit of America's greatest sport.