#138 Michael Pintar - PRCA Photographer
Passion for photography stems from an underlying interest in art. Michael Pintar did not, however, harness a desire for creating art again until he was 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’, he shares a longtime respect for rodeo, which generates my intent to capture 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 - PRCA Photographer
Joining us in the studio is my good friend, Michael Pintar. He is a pro rodeo photographer traveling around the US, capturing amazing moments of rodeo cowboys and American heritage. He is a photographer that I hold in the highest regard. He's been a true inspiration to my art. If you are not following Pintargraphy on Instagram, you should be but above all that, Mike is a great friend. I always enjoy his company. We dove all over the place in conversation. It was an amazing episode. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I do.
Welcome back, Mike.
It’s great to be here.
We have been trying to get you back in here but you're a busy guy.
I’ve been on the road a little bit.
You've been crushing it since the last time you've been in.
Thank you, not as much as I would like to but damn gas prices.
I would imagine. Driving around the country is not fun.
Idaho was good because both the rodeos I did there were paid gigs. That helps out a lot. You don't make a lot of money at it. You more or less break even. It comes down to doing what you love.
It'll happen one day. Your work speaks for itself. You are a pro rodeo photographer. You have some high demands. You told me that you weren't going to do the episode unless Jeremy was here.
It’s a win on Mike’s part.
I was excited again to see Jeremy here. Didn't I send you that text? I said, “Jeremy, I’m going to be here.”
The last time you were in, it was you and me. We ended up going two and a half hours to all the bells and didn't miss a beat.
We spent a good hour opening up and talking about music and stuff.
I don't even think we talked about what you do.
No, we dipped our toes in the water slightly on some of the rodeo photography.
We'll do some more of that on this one. I owe you that one.
It's good to be back.
Jeremy, it is good to have you here. Michael, you have been on the road. You were in Idaho and Cheyenne.
I did Cheyenne, not all 10 days and 9 performances. I did shoot the opening weekend at Cheyenne and The Finals weekend.
That’s the grand out of them. I've never been but it is a huge ass event.
It's a big rodeo. It is more from a traditional sense that I can't think of a single contestant who aspires to make Cheyenne one of their ultimate go-to rodeos annually and try to win it. It's neat from a photographer's standpoint because, for somebody like me who shoots in the arena a lot, you're not giving that option.
You have to shoot from what they call the photography pit, which is directly across from the bucking chutes. On any given day, there'll probably be another 5, 6, or up to 15 photographers in there. You're nut to butt in there on the finals but the fact of the matter is it's still neat because, provided you have the right equipment, you're getting what I would say is close enough to reach out and get the action.
For somebody who is trying to focus a lot more on unsticking it out when you want to get some of the bullfighters like Cody Webster and Dusty Tuckness, who are two of the greatest, you want to be able to get them helping the bull riders when they're bucked off and fending off that bull. A lot of times, if you're like me, who does like to shoot in the arena, you can't stick around as long as you'd like to because you're trying to make sure you don't get run over by the bull. Cheyenne gives you that opportunity to stick around and get some cool shots of those guys.
A lot of times, if you like to shoot in the arena, you can't really stick around as long as you'd like to because you're trying to make sure you don't get run over by the bull.
You like underground shooting.
You're at eye level, practically. You're in a pit. You step down into it and the dirt is in your eyes. You have to be wary of the horses that are coming around because the tons of dirt will get kicked into there.
It’s like being in a shark cage.
I did a velocity tour and shoot in West Virginia a while back. They asked me if I wanted to shoot in the cage that night. That's in the arena. That is a lot of fun.
Is it out what's in the middle? It's a cage.
Yes, there's a cage. They'll announce from the top of it. The rider might hop up on top of the little mini stage that it is but you step down into that and you can shoot in there. That is exciting about that. That's a lot of fun. Cheyenne was cool. It was my first time going there. I didn't even know what you had to do to do it. I called up my buddy Click Thompson and said, “What do I get to do to get into Cheyenne? I know you shoot that.” He goes, “Write to them early to the committee and request to be able to shoot.”
Are there X amount of spots?
Yeah, on a daily level. When you get there, usually the day before, you want to tell them, “I'm going to shoot in a pit in the first half of the rodeo and maybe shoot the second half of the rodeo. I'm going to stay in the entire rodeo.” You have to decide what you want to do there. For the first time, we were in Cheyenne and I didn't know what to do. I did enjoy the pit. I got some good shots behind the bucking chutes.
That's a traditional rodeo that's been happening for hundreds of years. I wouldn’t imagine that the waitlist is ridiculous to get into those. Is it picked as a priority? Your work speaks for itself like. It's freaking amazing.
It's interesting because they let other media outlets in there. You might be shooting Western Horseman Magazine. You can come in there and shoot but PRCA, Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association photogs, like myself, do get the honor to be able to do it and get accepted in there because they know we've gone through what it takes to become a PRCA photographer.
You're saying sanctioned or parted by them.
There's Sheer Logistics. Not every photographer is going to be able to make Cheyenne because it's Cowboy Christmas time here. There's a rodeo going on all over the country. There are some people who simply will be like, “I'm going to shoot this rodeo instead. Cheyenne is cool.” I don't think it ever gets overcrowded over there.
Not every photographer is going to be able to make Cheyenne because it's cowboy Christmas time, so there's a rodeo going on all over the country.
The great Lane Frost, did he die in Cheyenne?
Yes, he died in Cheyenne.
Do they do any tribute to him?
On an annual basis, there's always that looming presence of recognizing and pain treatment for Lane. Cody Webster did that before the beginning of the last day. He posted something on Instagram. He said, “How can you not look around here and know that this is where Lane Frost was? He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, for a long time there.”
Ironically, Cody took a little bit of a beating there at the end. I can't remember the bull rider he was fending off and helping but he got trampled good. He broke a few ribs. One of the other photographers and I were sitting there afterward and comparing frame-for-frame what we got. It's dramatic. Cody is doing fine but what those guys do is amazing.
He's an amazing guy. I follow him on Instagram. He’s the cream of the crop.
Yes, he and Dusty. I like it when those two work together. I got to work with them both in Vernal, Utah. I stay the heck out of their way as much as possible but it's unique when you do get to shoot a rodeo where people you look up to are there working with you. There's a reason why they're the best. It makes for a whole overall better-functioning rodeo. These guys are good.
When you get to shoot a rodeo where the people you look up to are there working with you, you see the reason why they're the best, and it makes for an overall better functioning rodeo.
The guys I like to watch the most are the bullfighters. They're cool guys to hang out with. They're selfless. They throw themselves in front of a freaking bull to save a cowboy. It's a wild sport.
When I start looking back at my photos and I'm trying to stick it out a little longer and get some of those images, those guys are hands-on. Their hand is on the head of that bull all the time. They're grabbing a horn, pushing the forehead of that bull, or pushing off of them. I want to go to a rodeo school to find out what that is. I've been in the arena enough. I'm not saying I want to become a bullfighter but the techniques might come in handy a little bit. I still have some wheels underneath this.
I would think you’d be wearing cleats out there. I asked you that last time because you want to get the fuck out of the way when one of those things is barreling down on you.
We've had a muddy season.
Do you have any pictures of him on your Instagram that you took?
He tears that barrel up.
Those guys are awesome. Cody, if you're reading this shout-out, we would love to have you anytime here in town.
He's humble and down to earth.
For people reading this, we're watching him save a cowboy from getting trampled. He's got both of his hands on the bull's head. At one point, one on a horn to divert the bull from trampling a cowboy.
Understanding the body language of that bull of what they're going to do is interesting.
You got a badass job. Is that your photos there?
I don't know if I know what that is. Who did that one? His wife did. She goes by Smash Webster.
Those are some real Rocky Mountains.
He's careful when he sits down.
You might find something on my Instagram. I thought I put something up there of Cody. I've got a bunch more.
The horse photos are the ones I like to look at of yours. They are insane because those bucking horses are wild.
I like this one. All the dudes are casual underneath.
It’s another day in the office.
Ryan Sanford set an arena record that day. It’s the highest score in that arena on Saddle Broncs.
Explain to me the scoring. I want to point out something else while we're here and we'll come back to that. I love the off-kilter. It's not just all rodeo photography that you do. The student and headdresses are incredible photos. I like the color, the beadwork, and the art in that. You are catching that in the moment. It's incredible.
The Shoshone tribe is there in Idaho. I saw that and I was caught by intention. I thought, “Look at the colors.” I don't know if I'm right on this or not but tribes are allowed to have Eagles feathers. I don't know if that's Eagle there or not but they mention something about it. There's something about it. It's important to pay tribute to some of the heritage behind that rodeo. That's why I posted that picture.
It's important to pay tribute to some of the heritage behind the rodeo.
Not only that but the porcupine hair and horse hair. Look at the beadwork. Did you imagine how long it took to make that chess piece? I couldn't do that in my lifetime.
I didn't look at all that on his chest and arms.
You caught it perfectly. You can see all the details. The sharpness is incredible.
The bonnet is the round part that you see up near his head. That is earned. These are all things that this gentleman earned. Seymour Eaglespeaker is his name. He caught my eye. When I was in the arena, I photographed them at the beginning of the rodeo. It's important to capture that stuff.
You are sharing a little bit of their culture. I don't think you get to see it. I was fortunate enough in some of the work that I've done that I've got to go on a few reservations. Those people are full artists when it comes to the silver work that they do. What they're selling off of a card table is unbelievable.
When I lived down in Arizona, I was always cutting through the Navajo and you'd go to stop it. It's worth stopping at some of those stands that they have. There's so much cool stuff.
Jeremy, scroll back up. That's Cody right there.
That's in Cheyenne.
That’s a badass photo.
Thank you.
We commented on it. It must have been me.
I can’t spell anything. It’s just a fire emoji.
I put up a few pictures behind that one too.
It’s cool because you don't see many photos of the bullfighters in action. It's because of what you said. The photographers are trying to get the hell out of the way.
Somebody paid a nice compliment to me on my Facebook page about a photo. He said, “Excellent work.” I saw somebody else chimed in. I can't even think of the name. This person was also a photographer. They said, “The rodeo eye was at.” First, he said, “Mike does excellent work.” Unfortunately, the rodeo that I shot, without saying what rodeo was, this person had mentioned but the rodeo didn't provide the action that I needed to be able to get the shots.
How could it not? That’s wild animals.
You can make something out of everything. I don't even care if it's mutton-busting. When people start to say, “You have an eye for this. You have a creative mind,” maybe there's some lack of creativity there.
You can make something out of everything if you have a creative mind.
What is mutton busting?
That's where they get on the sheep.
It's little kids. It's like the Cowboys getting on sheep.
I looked at this person's pictures and went. “You were shooting possibly with the wrong lens. You're far away. You need to have enough megapixels to go in and crop it if you're shooting from that far away. This is why I try to shoot as close as I can with the action.”
It sounds like you are a shitty photographer.
I'm going, “If you want to get what I'm trying to do, you do have to get close.” Unfortunately, even when I shot the Jerome County Fair and Rodeo, those folks out there were excellent, but it was the first time that I had met everybody there. You want to not only be kind and courteous, which is all part of what you do with rodeo but you want to be able to hustle and do a good job. Part of that starts with saying, “I'm going to go up to the pickup man, the stock contractor, and the rodeo director.” I let them know that I'm comfortable shooting in the arena. “As long as you know that I know that I swim at my risk out here, I will do my best not to get in your way.”
Those guys have a job to do.
I was happy that after I had gotten done with the previous rodeo, the War Bonnet Round Up in Idaho Falls, I talked to the pickup men at the end of the deal. We're all hanging out and having a beer. I said, “Thanks for letting me shoot the way I normally do again.” He goes, “Mike, I got to be answering that. I never even knew you were there.” I'm always looking back behind me to see if they're on their horses, right behind me, or sometimes I'll be right next to them but I try to stay out of their way as much as possible.
Talk about having your head on a swivel. It's like stepping onto a football field or worse. Those bulls weigh 2,000 pounds or more.
1,800 to 2,200 is the average.
They are fast as hell.
Here's the thing. You don't want to make the number one mistake you make. I know that I'm not supposed to do it. I might catch myself and stop myself in it. Getting done with a ride and you're looking down at your camera, I did this of all things. It was at the American.
Was it in your Instagram Likes?
Watching Cowboy Channel live on your cellphone. I was walking in front of the sheep.
Those AI girls are hot.
I was looking at my camera. You've got your screen on there. The cool part about the Canon R5 that I shoot with is when you look through the eyepiece, it's like a loop. You can look and see if you're getting the right details but you don't have a lot of time in between rides. There was something I was doing and something I had to look at. Maybe it was my early shots to make sure I was getting them good.
When you're shooting the final day at the American, there are 60,000 plus fans there. You're in Arlington, Texas, where the Texas Rangers play. I caught myself looking at my camera. I stopped and looked at where I stopped. They're getting ready to buck the bull out of that shoot. I'm going, “What a rookie mistake was that.”
You were standing where they were going to open to buck the bull out.
They were like, “Can we run a rodeo here? Can you get out of the way?”
At least, they were gracious enough.
Fortunately, they know that I know better and they know me. I played it off as like, “I was kidding around but I felt like an idiot.” You don't look at your shots in the arena because every single event has some type of setting that you have that you need to be ready for all the time.
You look at your shots rarely, if ever, in the arena because every single event has some type of setting that you need to be ready for all the time.
A big thing is going in there prepared. You don't want to be fucking around with your camera when you got to try to make a shot.
I know all the settings that I prefer, whether you have ambient light during the day or nighttime.
We could get geeky on this because I have a passion for photography. Maybe I'll ask you some of this off-air. I want to know more about the rodeo aspect at the pro level. Are you running into the same guys a lot of the time? You mentioned this kid who had the highest score ever at Cheyenne on a Saddle Broncs Course.
That's the first I've ever caught of him. He's out of California. He's a different circuit. There's no way somebody like him is not going to show up at Cheyenne, even though it's a Mountain States Circuit Rodeo. How that works is even for myself as a PRCA-carded photographer, I designate myself as being part of the Mountain States Circuit. As a competitor, I have to do so many rodeos throughout the season in my circuit. I can't remember how many it is.
Is the AFC related to football? I'm a big dumb guy. Is it the AFC West and East?
It's mostly circuits. You have the Mountain States, the Prairie Circuit, and the Southeast.
They are quadrants of the country.
It's based on where you live. Somebody like Lefty will show up. He might end up being at a rodeo in Florida, maybe not likely but he might go to Kissimmee at the beginning of the year if the payouts are good enough. That won't qualify for a rodeo in his circuit but it's still a rodeo that he can do.
Is that how they get fed to the NFR, the National Finals Rodeo? They have to place after they win number one in their circuit.
The NFR will take the top fifteen in all of the events.
That's nationally.
Do you guys know when the rodeo starts and ends?
It starts January 1st and ends December 14th or 15th.
The rodeo season ends at the end of September. That's when it's done. Do you know when it starts again? It’s October 1st, the very next day. The rodeo season never ends. In this case, Lefty Holman, who's on the path to qualifying again for another one of his National Final Rodeos, will finish in the top fifteen by the end of September.
They will not pick up any of the new rodeos between there and the National Finals Rodeo, which is always in December. He might pick up 1 rodeo or 2 or show up at some stuff. It's interesting because when the season's over on September 30th, you've got everybody decided who's going to go to the National Finals Rodeo. There's big money there.
Are those guys not having a chance to get hurt to go to the National Finals? That's the Super Bowl of rodeo.
It's what every athlete in the rodeo aspires to qualify for. If you're a bull rider and you have some other rodeo coming up between the new season starting on October 1st and December for the National Finals Rodeo, I don't know if I'd want to be getting on too many bulls because I don't want to risk on getting hurt.
PRCA Photographer: The National Finals Rodeo is what every athlete in the rodeo aspires to qualify for.
I know some of the guys who have performed at that level and been to the NFR. I don't know if they are ever World Champs or not but the top fifteen cowboys in the world to make it is huge. Think about what you're doing as a sport, especially if you're getting on bucking horses or bulls. The chance of injury for you as a photographer is high.
I don't like that.
You have to be on your toes. The shape they're in and what they put their body through is amazing to me.
They talk about it in the old Bart Starr. If you know who I'm referring to, he's a quarterback from Green Bay. Back when the NFL was first starting, those guys would smoke cigarettes and drink beers during halftime.
Look at the Marlboro.
They have their sponsors and endorsements. You've got to stay in shape. It's like Doug Champion from Champion Living Fitness. His brother Richie Champion is one of the top bareback riders. Doug, unfortunately, got banged up and hurt a while back but he was a bareback rider. When he knew that he wasn't going to ride anymore, he took care of being a coach and trainer.
He teaches, trains, and coaches some of the best riders in rodeo. I've listened to him tell people. He was like, “Your body is your business. You get up in the morning. It's like turning on the lights at the factory. You are your own factory. If you don't take care of your body, you're not going to be able to run a good business.” That means a lot. You're seeing a lot more of that.
Your body is your business. When you get up in the morning, it's like turning on the factory lights. You are your own factory. So if you don't take care of your body, you won’t be able to run a good business.
Not that it's not the rough and tough. It still is but it's a different mindset. You have organizations like the PBR. These guys are taking the shit seriously. It's serious as a UFC fighter does.
Keenan Hayes is number one in bareback. He's from Hayden, Colorado. There's the Mountain States Circuit. Keenan is great. I've watched him and he's phenomenal. It's funny because when I run into Cheyenne, he's over there doing some stretches. I see Tim O'Connell, who's intense. Everybody's got their character. I look over it at Tim. He's focused. He's doing all the things. Doug might even be coaching him, as far as I know, in terms of stretching properly and rodeo prepping but there's Keenan. He's smoking a cigarette. I was like, “You don't need to be stretching your number one in the world. Light up a cigarette.”
It’s crazy when people get to that level because there is a natural athleticism that you are born with. Some people have it. Some people don't. You're fortunate to be able to be walking and have a brain that works. You should be grateful for whatever God gave you because there are some people out there who have it way worse off.
There’s so much to be grateful for. The fact that I can even sit in here with you two and be able to have this conversation, I'm super grateful for it.
That's why you're sitting here. We like having people in that are like that. They understand. You can be humble in a lot of different ways but be happy with what you have. That's huge. Cheers to that. I brought up the UFC. Look at Jon Jones early on in his career. He was racing Ferraris and doing cocaine and all kinds of crazy shit before his fight. He won the belt. He was like, “I was doing cocaine before the fight.” He blatantly said it on the air when he beat Daniel Cormier. It's a mindset but those are the outliers. That is not even the 1%. It’s 0.0001%. Ninety-five percent of these guys are taking the shit seriously, yourself included. You trained to be out there.
Without being overly transparent, the ADHD mind, like mine, needs to be able to be active and exercise whenever they can.
I've never been diagnosed with it. They never gave me the badass pills that I guess you get forth.
My brother and I, when we first tried to get on bulls, it was that classic line in the movie 8 Seconds, Drinking, Loving, Fighting Cowboys. The image that was put out there for a long time was like that but these guys and gals are serious athletes. When you've got somebody who's helping front the bill to get you down the road, you're going to work your ass off to keep getting that support.
We, photographers, could start to use some endorsements and sponsorships. There are those of us who have that. They don't know that we need that. I guess it's up to me to try to put the word out there too. I don't know if you know this. As a photographer, we have to qualify if you want to go to the National Finals Rodeo.
They judge you.
I pay the same annual fee as a PRCA card-holding member for the photography.
They only take our top fifteen photographers.
They only take 2 or 3 photographers.
It’s even worse than the Cowboys.
It's tight. Without getting into the political aspects of it, from the technicality standpoint, you have to shoot at least 8 rodeos, which consist of 20 performances. What that means is if I shoot one rodeo, that is a full Rodeo that has all the events in it.
Triangles for a month.
It says 10 days but when I was shooting the final day, and it was performance 9. I didn't know if somewhere or something was missing in there. I didn't do the math on it. I call it 10 days of rodeo but it's 9 performances. You have to shoot to even be considered for the National Finals Rodeo as a photographer, at least 8 rodeos and 20 performances if I'm not mistaken.
When I was in Idaho, I shot two rodeos over there. I did the War Bonnet Round Up in Idaho Falls. I did the Jerome County Fair and Rodeo. Each one of those rodeos had three nights of performances. In total, I did 2 rodeos and 6 performances. That would go towards my qualification for the end of the year to be voted in. They're making their decision on August 25, 2023. I have no chance. It's not that I don't have a chance if I put more effort out there but I'm not going to be able to get that many performances in.
I started slow. The first rodeo I did around here was Evergreen Rodeo but before that, I hadn't done anything yet. Every week, we can look at rodeos that are going on all over the country. If somebody's not shooting it or if I know the people on the rodeo committee, I can get in and try to shoot that but you have to almost run your campaign. Sit down at the end of the season and go, “What am I going to do in 2024? I want to try to make an effort to get into the National Finals Rodeo.”
It's competitive on your guy into.
There's a picture of Click Thompson and me on my Instagram. He was the Photographer of the Year in 2022. He also shot the National Finals Rodeo.
You're doing it right. You surround yourself with the people that are making it.
He's good stuff. I love that guy.
We got to get you and Click here at the same time. That would be badass.
It would be a lot of fun. We have a hard time keeping a straight face from around each other. I don't want to do the spoiler alert but Click has a little bit of something coming from me because he did something that messed me up at Cheyenne. I haven't gotten around to posting my Reels yet but Click, you got something coming. Don't worry about it. You're going to see it here shortly. He's badass. He's classically trained. By that, he's very artistic in what he does. He's got such a creative mind. He made the decision. I can't remember how long ago it's been. Look at the reflection in those shades right there. I know what he's up to. I can tell when I look at his work. Sometimes, I'm going, “That is cool.”
That's the crazy thing about the cameras you guys use. For some of the cameras I have, I've taken photos of my daughter. The quality and the megapixels are good enough that if you zoom in on her eye, you can see me standing there with the camera. It's badass.
How do you be creative in a world where there are so many of us, not just in rodeo but in photography in general?
How do you become creative in a world where there are so many of us—not just rodeo photographers but photographers in general?
You’ve been able to do it. Since the last time you've been in here, you have tripled or quadrupled. It wasn't that long ago.
We were in episode 97.
Several weeks after that, it was your birthday.
We didn't celebrate my birthday here on the 7th.
I didn’t get the invite this time.
I was in Jerome, Idaho.
We’re celebrating now.
My gal Jennifer, who goes by Jax, is big on birthdays. She loves celebrating birthdays.
I’m not. I like celebrating other people's birthdays but my own, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anybody.
I have no problem being on the road by myself in some dinky town at some small ass hotel and going, “I'm going to the rodeo tonight.” I don't have a problem with that.
How many birthdays, between all of us, have we spent out of town away from family in a hotel room?
All the time. The worst is missing kids or loved one’s birthdays. That's the hard part of being on the road.
Click get that. He shoots in Reno. Reno is one that I want to do but unfortunately, Evergreen Rodeo is always going on at the same time. Why am I so committed to my local rodeo?
We love you here in town. Everybody does. I love having you guys like you in town. It's good for me. Your work is as good, Mike. No disrespect to Click. I know that he's classically trained. It is a different style. You need that diversity in the photos.
See this one right here. Remember how we looked at Cody and Dusty Tuckness? I can tell you where he's shooting. He was in the shoots for this one versus where I was shooting from the pit. Look at this right hand.
That's how I said bye to my dog when I left. That's a 2,000-pound bull.
That's what Cody is saying. He's going, “I love you, buddy.” This is what they do for a living. They do their best at it. What does it take to get the nerve to know that you can trust yourself to get that close to this 2,000-pound charging beast and get comfortable?
It's got to be faith.
I even got nudged in Jerome because we had a bull who didn't want to leave the arena.
You're going to get caught. What's the line that the rodeo announcers always say? I was always the guy climbing on or about to do some of that. It's not a matter of win or how bad.
It’s about when.
We have had many concussions to remember that.
That's always a rule with motorcycles.
Even when I was in my little Harley phase there, it's bound to happen. When am I going to dump my bike?
That's not even the same. You have to watch out for other people. Shit happens. You are climbing on the back of wild animals.
It has all gotten as elite as these athletes are. They are fed better than most athletes. They are elite athletes.
How do you train them for stuff like this?
That's bred into them. I talked to people about this all the time with the bucking horses. I get a lot of guff from people.
Is it who drinks Bud Light? Sorry, it’s too soon.
I probably get better support from your Bud Light side of the scene than people in Europe who don't have a rodeo.
They don't have hunting, either.
I don't know if you call them bots or intentional provokers but every now and then, I'll get these people on Instagram or Facebook. They were like, “That’s animal cruelty. Look at what you do.” They say that they're the experts and know it all because they owned a horse or their dad was a farmer or a rancher.
We're not fox-hunting here.
Fox hunting is tough on those horses.
I imagine you dressed up like one of those dudes.
I wouldn't dress up like that.
That's a serious sport but that's the thing. You're never going to make everybody happy. I love this one. People will go, “You're tying up their nuts.” I'm going, “There has nothing to do with their yam sack.” I don't know the exact percentage but I know at least 50%, 60%, or 70% of all bucking horses are mares. I mentioned this last time. Good luck finding anything down there. The animals are athletes and trained. They go out and have a job to do. They're treated so well. They got eight seconds at a time.
You're never going to make everyone happy.
Most of these people don't even where their food comes from. We don't even need to go down that road. I've beat that up before.
This new thing is being an engagement troll. That's been a thing for a while, especially on Twitter, to get monetized.
I'm not saying the general public but 10% of the general public does not like to see somebody succeed. When somebody's doing something badass, they're going to chime in. I've seen it happen here. We get so much positive feedback. It's unreal but the positive feedback is real people and accounts. Nobody's showing their face that's negative feedback. If they are, they're my friends and it's constructive criticism. I have some brutal friends who will tell me, which I'm more grateful for, that I am the person who tells me what I want to hear.
It's best if you got somebody who says, “I'm going to give it to you straight.” That's a true friend.
You have to hold that value. Jeremy is one of those. You fuck that up.
I never do that. How dare you?
Do you remember the first ten minutes here? It might have been bad. Do you see that cover for Cowboy Lifestyle Magazine?
Is that yours?
That made the cover here for the Summer Edition of the Cowboy Lifestyle Magazine. The rumor has it they're going to be doing, in the Fall Edition, a write-up on me. I'm excited about that but that picture there is in Evergreen.
That horse is looking right at you.
We know each other.
It was fun watching you running around the rodeo.
Did you go?
We went on the last day.
How badass is that? Here in our little town, we have a pro event that has been on for many years. I’m sure they have a website. It might be 100 years.
I don't think it's that many yet. Let's take a look here. There's one of my pictures right there.
Is that the poster?
She's Back in the Saddle was our theme in 2023. That's Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi. It's been going for 230 years.
That 57 years will fill up the back of it.
We're getting a little local here.
I was hoping she would be coming back through town because her husband, Garrett, is a team roper. I was like, “I hope Brittany comes through.” When we were getting ready to choose the picture for 2023's poster, they had the theme, She's Back in the Saddle. They had another barrel racing picture picked out. I said, “This is who we need to put on here.” She is killing it. She won Calgary. She's number one.
This is their website. It's pretty badass.
This is the mutton busting, Bobby. It was such a blast.
I want to make sure they didn't add a sport.
I'm surprised we don't get that.
I want to make sure that rodeo is not getting soft. This is one of the things I appreciate. I'm not a real rodeo fan. I don't go and seek it out.
I don't want to sit there and watch a rodeo.
It's badass. The guys that do it are amazing. I love hanging out with that type of person. The family values are there. Evergreen has kept it as a tradition. It's important to me. As much as the world is going the other way, and I don't know how to say this or even make it come off, but I don't care. It feels like the rest of the world's bending over on tradition a little bit or throwing it out the window. It's not certain types of heritage. All heritages should be celebrated. I feel like rodeo does that. It's something you can take your family.
Not only is it badass to watch and amazing but there are so many people who conform to whatever is popular. You're getting all this hate for being a rodeo photographer and capturing these incredible moments of athletes performing that they have no idea but where is the hate most coming from? Is it from animal rights activists? Do you even know at that point? Is it people trying to dumb down that culture? Is it more people and animal rights types of stuff? The hunting community takes the same hit.
They do because people don't understand conservation, what it does, and how it is preserved.
None of those people have listened to a biologist or shake the hand of a large animal vet.
It’s like Shane Barrett, who's a local. He's based out of Golden but he's from up here. He's got roots here. He's been doing that. He's been the vet for this rodeo for many years. He's been doing it for a long time. Shane is a great large animal vet. I've worked with him in my previous experiences working in the animal health industry.
Sorry, we're going down a dark path.
What you hit home on is I tell people, “There is no other sport with this rich tradition and in terms of patriotism and tribute to God.” You don't have to be a Holy Roller to appreciate and try to get that out there. They pledge allegiance to the flag. They're always going to do the national anthem. One of the pictures that people reach out to me all the time or one of my prints is called Belief. I took it when I was down in Arizona. It's 5 or 6 bull riders. They're all kneeling. This was back when the whole kneeling thing was going on with all that bullshit with the Kaepernick crap. I was going, “We're kneeling to genuflect to the Lord without even pushing the God thing.”
I didn't even realize that. I've seen that firsthand. You're replaying something in your mind.
My mom has one of the prints on the wall. My good friend, Scott, in Evergreen, has it in their bedroom. He bought a massive one of it. He loves it. He's a military vet. He thought it caught his attention. The point is rodeo is so patriotic. All these athletes, when they're winning, they were like, “Glory to God. Thank you.” They're not shoving that down our throats. You can choose to believe what you want. It's such a good feeling to know that they're grateful.
That's the Western culture. Being a cowboy is being respectful and tough.
It's a sexy sport. Look at the fashion end of it.
Look at some of these shops.
I'm talking about all the different girls on there.
I didn’t notice any of them. It’s weird.
Not on my site, you're going to see all the women.
Where are they, Mike?
This is horrible. There's no action on here.
There's one, which is called the American flag.
It is probably a 4th of July post. I do want to put a big apologetic message to all the time event folks that I know and do shoot a lot of pictures of the barrel racers. I want to start incorporating more of that into my imagery. A lot of times, I've found that I'll get more action on what people like in my work. That doesn't mean that I don't photograph other things. I have to. It's what I do when I'm in the arena but I don't know what to post all the time.
You are doing it right. I love seeing your shit. You can scroll through Instagram. I don't do this often. I've been bad about it but I try to support my personal friends and people that I've had on here but it’s turning into a lot. I've gotten so fed up with the way that Instagram and some of these platforms run their things because I'm getting hit up by so many people.
I'm getting followers that are fake women. I don't know what they're doing. They're trying to entice me to look at their OnlyFans. I can't deal with the noise. Those people are coming up in my feed. I don't follow any of them. I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole but when I am scrolling, I have a few minutes, I’m waiting at the airport terminal, and I have nothing better to do, that's when I find myself on Instagram. It's me getting inspired by my friends.
I wish there were a way to pay a membership to Instagram where you didn't get any advertisements. If it were $5, $10, or $15 a month, I would do it because I only want to see my friends. I only want to see Mike Pintar's videos and knives from Half Face Blades. I follow Half Face Blades but I don't want to see every knife maker out there. I follow them for a reason there. That's my friend.
I'm invested in that as a friendship more than anything. Not only do they make an incredible product. I don't want to see every survival expert because Donny Dust is my buddy. I don't want to see every UFC fighter and what they're doing because I support certain ones that are real people. For me, it's frustrating.
I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh. You go to your Instagram on the homepage.
Am I fucking up?
You're not fucking out at all. My Instagram is so goofy. It's seasonal. If it's ski season like we have out here, I start surfing and doing stuff. During the winter, I'm going to be pulling up a lot more skiing-related stuff. If you were to go to my page on any given day and hit the search, the little magnifying glass, it's funny because I was telling my brother this. I go, “It's going to be probably a bunch of chicks in bikinis and Corgis.”
Mine is French Bulldogs because I love those breeds of dogs. I don’t own one. I have Blue Heelers Cattle Dog.
Why French Bulldog?
It’s because I will stop and watch their little dumbasses sleep.
It's a forward-facing camera that knows where your eyes are doing. They also know how long you stay on a post. It's like this big schmuck gloves French Bulldogs. You keep delivering that right to him.
I want a French Bulldog. How about us with that be? The Blue Heelers are not nice.
They love their owners. They're super loyal to their owner but they're always going to look out after you first.
My dog is being great to everybody except for Jeremy. She's jealous. She knows that Jeremy is my ride-or-die.
I was stoked when Bobby was like, “I got a new dog and a puppy.” I rolled it. I'm like, “Get this thing off me.”
I was Corgis before Corgis were cool. I mean that. Everybody has them. They're part of the herding breed. They're the working class dog.
I don't want to call it a wiener dog because they're not but they are short.
Pull up a Corgi. Go to anything on there, Jeremy. They're the coolest thing. Unfortunately, everybody in their mother has them. I had them when I lived in Fort Collins, Abigail, and Trigger. I saw them on the Westminster Dog Show. It’s one of those nights when I was flipping channels and I don't know what to watch. I was like, “We all loved dogs so let's watch this.” I then was like, “What the hell are these things?” I found out that they're part of the herding breed. The Queen of England had him forever. They're part of that heritage. They are Celtic.
Look at the legs on those things.
They're less than 4 inches tall.
My heeler is fast as fuck. They look like a Red Heeler a little bit.
They're doing that typical cross-breeding. I saw a Blue Merle Corgi and I went, “That's mixed with an Aussie.”
Sway for the Corgidoodle.
Don't even get me started.
That’s coming down the pike.
I was always going, “I don't want to tell people I have Corgis. They're going to be like, ‘What's up with you?’” I ran into a couple of my cowboy buddies. I'd be out at a horse show in Florida, Texas, or somewhere and they have them. A lot of horse owners have Corgis. My son has one. He has his page, Longhaired Louis.
They have a sticker after him. My son's wife, Hannah, has a shop that sells cool things. It is everything from furniture to country décor. Louie is the shop manager. He's always there. People come in to see Louie. She posted something. It said, “Due to popular demand, we've created a Louie sticker. When you're checking out at the counter, there's always a rack of stickers. There are Louis stickers in there.” I have Louis on my camera case.
I have been helping Comedy Works out part-time. I can't get into the details but it's been badass. The people that work down there are the best staff in the world. They are aspiring comics or from the music industry. They're working in the comedy industry. We have a restaurant there that's named after a French Bulldog. I don't know if it was all the traffic that we've been having. The restaurant is called Lucy. They have two locations. This is the South location. Shout-out to all the staff. They’re amazing people.
The mascot and the name of the restaurant is Lucy. They have incredible food. If you ever have the chance, stop down there and have dinner. It's badass. It's a great spot to catch a comedy show. Top comics are coming through town. I don't know if that's what started the French Bulldog feed. Going back to the feed, I'm like, “What the hell? It’s French Bulldogs, hot chicks, and then liking your photos.”
I've supported Half Face Blades since the beginning. I supported them before they were even a knife company. It was just an idea. It was back before there was an Instagram or Facebook type of thing. I like your photos and support you. I don't know that I follow Click. It’s maybe because of you but I get other rodeo photographers’ thing.
That's what I was wondering. Jeremy, you hit on that. This stuff is trained on you.
If it's a French Bulldog doing something stupid, and you take one second and pause on that page and even an advertisement, if you think it's something you want to buy, the next thing you know, you're buying a TRX.
It's interesting because we want this but we don't want this. It’s almost like that big brother thing.
They ruined it because I was never on Instagram at the beginning. I know some people who were on it several years ago, back when it was big. I am so grateful for it. I've made a ton of connections. I would imagine that you're grateful for it.
Raise your hand if you're on Instagram because you feel like you have to be. I don't have a choice. I do need it. I depend upon it.
It's great because I can go to your page and see all of your work, not exactly what you're doing. I have been very conscious of that. My buddy and I, Dustin Jacoby, went up to the archery range. He's a pro fighter. He was posting stuff on the fly, which was awesome but I was telling him I'm different with it. It’s not even that handy. It bit me in the ass. People have figured out where I'm at and not everybody likes me. For me, there's a 24-hour period where people don't have to know what I'm doing this second. If it's a special moment, it's a special moment.
That's a great way to put it. Our attention span is, when you like a story, it's fifteen seconds or less. I don't know if that's changed. You have your Reels but there is the power behind the video, which also is the next step I'm trying to take. We're sitting here. This is going to be converted into a video.
There is power behind video. It’s made to capture our attention span, like when you do a story or reel that’s 15 seconds or less.
We have a production team. I know I had that way. I think we did when you came in the last time.
You were scratching the surface of it.
We were just getting into it.
I was blown away because I didn't even know that you were doing a YouTube on this.
There's a YouTube on your last one.
I pulled it up once. We were all sitting around in a living room. I go, “Check this out.” Not this again because once I got word of it, I would put it on.
Were you happy with the quality?
I loved it. Yes, other than critiquing myself, we all do.
Bobby has never done that. He never critiqued himself.
Would you shut up and listen? Has the whole world gone crazy? I think of Walter from Big Lebowski. That's very much my style.
We’re covering a bunch in terms of the social media aspect but that's what this is about. I don't know how to navigate around everything that I could do.
It has done so much good for us. It's the reason why we have an audience. The fourth episode that we recorded back when this was an idea, I was like, “I'm going to try this.” There was a pandemic happening. The original idea is the back-burner. The Mountain Side wasn't even the original idea, which is crazy. I'll tell you more about that later. I’ve spoken about this a couple of times. I reached out to some people in the outdoor community. I wanted to raise some awareness. This was the second idea. I couldn't get the first idea going because the pandemic hit but I had all the equipment. I had Colorado Parks and Wildlife set up. This was right at the beginning of it.
Help me out a little bit here. Were you going, “I want to create a podcast?”
The original idea was that I was on the road all the time. I work for all superstars and do their live production. I don't deal with the artist all that much. I deal with the artist’s demands. When they show up to play a show somebody like the Foo Fighters, there's an expected level. When you see the Foo Fighters, you should expect to see a show. It's not just five dudes walking out on the stage. There's a video wall that's involved, a lighting rig, a light show, a certain type of stage, dimensions, and certain things that they need in their dressing room. There are provisions they're going to bring with them. We're talking semi-loads of stuff.
There are audience expectations. That’s the most important part.
When you get to that level, like you and I are climbing certain levels, there's an expectation. When somebody reached out to you from the PRCA, they were like, “Mike, we want you to come to see this rodeo.” That's why you're there and holding that card. There's a level of expectations. You better not fuck it up.
You're part of the production. I sit on the production meetings. I always try to make sure that I know what's going to happen at any given point in time. I didn't do that at first. I started realizing, “I need to know these things because it's my responsibility.” Especially if you're going to be on camera or part of the production because you're simply in that setting, it's your responsibility to do that.
PRCA Photographer: Always try to make sure that you know what's going to happen at any given point in time. It’s your responsibility, especially if you're going to be on camera or part of the production.
You're expected to capture that badass magazine cover every time. That's a lot of pressure. I've been there. I've been a rock and roll photographer.
What does that feel like leading up to knowing you got to get this?
It's a lot of weight. I've done some stuff outside of it. To take it to the next level, there are certain times when you're shooting something. Get in there. You're shooting certain things that cost so much money. The production is large. You are given a script of what you want and what you should shoot. Sometimes, it's images or rendering of what they want to capture.
I heard that Taylor Swift's concerts affected the GDP. That chick is amazing.
It's not only Taylor Swift. I'm sorry to say this and no disrespect. I have a ton of friends who are out with her. It's whoever the hottest star is. That is an industry that employs so many people.
She could have fallen off the face of the earth a long time ago. She stayed relevant.
It doesn’t matter. There will be another one.
There will always be that.
I’m not discrediting her. There's always going to be a pop star or a metal band. I don't think that people see the bigger picture and that employs many people like rodeo. It's focused on the bull riders. Look at all the other people that it employs.
To circle back again, it’s all the more reason why you've got to be on your A-game all the time as much as you can. It is so easy to get caught in that trap of all the BS and the limelight.
Think that you're better than you are. Once people get comfortable, you should never get comfortable. You should always be growing.
It doesn't mean you have to live a paranoid life. Stick to what got you there and continue to roll with the punches, which encompasses what we're talking about. I don't want to be on Instagram all the time. You get a report every week. For those of us who have the business sites, it'll tell you, “You've been on here this much. This is your usage.” I love insights. I go to it. I do that where you can click on there and check insights. You can see where you're at.
It's so important for you as a photographer.
The Meta business is important for me. When I get a chance to open up my computer, not my cell phone, I can go, “Where is traffic driving?” I know what I need to do. Do I do it? Not even barely.
I didn’t mean to shift back on it.
I don't think you did.
It's a reason we have a show that is successful. My buddy Marc Montoya, one of the most prominent coaches in the UFC, was gracious enough to give me a chance and butcher my interview with him back when it was an interview.
You think you butchered it but you're here doing what you're doing.
He gave me a chance. He said yes. He came and sat across from me. Back then, the studio was on the other side of that wall. It was a closet. I would love to go back to that moment but I was horrible at what I did. I have learned a lot. I'm 140 episodes later. Marc said yes. He came in. He's a professional. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
In that episode, we talked about Cameron Hanes for a minute. He's a big part of the reason why we have an audience. He was getting a ton of hate at the moment. I was like, “If you're one of the ten people reading this thing and you don't like Cameron Hanes, turn this off now.” Cameron shared that. It spiraled out this roll. All of a sudden, I was like, “Look what happened.” It happened overnight.
Can you imagine what it took for Cameron Hanes? For those of you who don't know, we can always cover more of that but to give up his 5:00 to 9:00 job, look at how hard he worked strictly to hunt. Here's a guy who goes out and runs ultramarathons in the mountains to train for all cunning but he's always placed in these marathons. He got the Lift Run Shoot. The stuff is amazing.
It’s an amazing production. He did it right. He sat back, watched, and took it in. It’s such a good job.
I remember going up to him back when I was getting into bow hunting and I was trying to do my solo hunts. He wrote Backcountry Bowhunting. This was before you had SAT communications or tracking devices to tell everybody where you were in case you ran into some issues. I said, “Cameron, what are your thoughts on mountain lions? You barely scratch the service on it in your book.” He goes, “Mike, the biggest thing you need to worry about is rolling or breaking an ankle or getting hurt out there the same way as a cat doesn't want to break off one of its canines. They are very strategic in what they do. You need to be the same way.” That's all I needed. I went back out.
He’s so right. They are elusive. They don't want to fucking be around.
You know they're there every time but you can sleep at night and get to that point where you're out in your bivy sack. I went from hauling a 2-person tent to a 1-man tent to a bivy sack and sleeping out in that.
I challenge anybody to go find one in the wilderness without dogs or trail cameras. Capture a photo of one.
I don't walk from my house to my garage without a pistol. Every time I walk out of my garage, I’m like, “This motherfucker is about to jump on me.” I know it's ridiculous.
My son is a badass hunter. This kid is unbelievable. I'm in trouble with him. I say that in all kindness to McCaffrey but he even sent me a message. He goes. “Did you get that bow out?” That's all I was in.
Let's go, Mike. You hit me up a couple of times.
Here's what happened. I decided to go back to school years ago. It's been over how many years but I went back and did my Master's and MBA. I put hunting aside. I never got back into it but I love and appreciate it. I still have the stories. I can get together with my old hunting buddies.
That’s the stories that you never forget.
I want to bring that back. I want to do it too. Thank God, I am able to even put these on two legs underneath me. While I still got him, I would rather train again to go out and start hunting again because he sent me a message. My son said, “Several weeks from now, we should be thinking about elk hunting. Let's plan for a 2024 trip.”
That is my job. That is what I want to do. There’s nothing that would make me happier than to see my son stick a sweet ass elk up in the mountains out here or wherever we decide to go. The point is he's worked his ass off for it. Back home, he's got his little food plots that he does. I'm on the land that he hunts and he'll go out on his own.
Is he a whitetail hunter?
He’s a whitetail. He sent me a picture.
His name is McCaffrey.
It's not a shout-out to the Ed McCaffrey that we all know here in Denver. When his mother and I named him McCaffrey back in the day, pardon my French, but I'm like, “This is going to go over like a fart in church. That's like a last name. How's this going to work?” It stuck. I said, “Let's go with it.” His first name is always been McCaffrey. He's been Mac or Caf but he's a good kid. I'm so proud of him. Like most parents, we're proud of our kids. He's old roots. We’ll sit together and play guitar.
You could not be in a better spot in the world to be trained for archery hunting than sitting right here. The amount of people I have who are friends who have been on the show, from Olympic archery coaches to professional guides to callers, is incredible. The amount of resources and training ground is the most important.
I took my buddy up to American Bowmen. Shout-out to Luke Caudillo, Scott Enderich, and everybody at American Bowmen who maintains that place and keeps it running. I took my buddy, Dustin Jacoby, a UFC fighter. He was our last episode. He trains all the time. He doesn't get a chance to shoot his bow because his life is on the map. He's getting ready for fights. We took him up there. We had him shooting at 100 yards. You can do that out there.
Not to mention, you're hiking through the most incredible country. It is well maintained. It’s 3D targets. You're shooting up and downhill. You can't do that at an archery range. You can't stand there and throw arrows at 20 yards. Hit me up. I know people who can set your bow up, even if it's an old bow. Everybody thinks they need the new Hoyt.
My son is a Matthew's guy. He lived in Sparta, Wisconsin. That’s where they were made. I got my Bowtech.
They are all good. If you pick a main manufacturer, the technology has come far.
I got a 7-pin Spot Hogg. I put my fiber optics into it.
Let's go shoot. You don't have to have the nicest bow.
Even my kids said, “Can you send me a picture of your bow so I can get some tight macro shots on the strings?” He works at a bow shop.
That's an art in itself, being a bow tech.
I loved fletching my arrows. I was into this stuff. That's the thing. If you want to go out and shoot, that's great. When you want to start dialing and hunting, it stretches beyond the limits of the monetary. You're going to go out in the backcountry to bow hunting.
If you want to go out and shoot, that's great. But when you want to start dialing in on hunting, it stretches beyond the limits of the monetary. If you're going to go out into the backcountry and make the effort to get the tag, you’ve got to spend money to do it right.
If you're going to make the effort to get the tag, you have to spend the money. Do it right. Wounding an animal is the worst feeling in the world. I don't give a fuck if you're Cameron Hanes, John Dudley, Aaron Snyder, or Tom Clum. If anybody tells you they have never wounded an animal in their life, their goddamn liar. Shit happens.
I hit a deer once way back in the day when I lived up in Fort Collins. I would hang up in the Red Feather Lakes area. It was an evening shot uphill. I shouldered him. I know I did because my buddy at that time recorded it but I couldn't find that deer. I went back to Fort Collins that night. I got up extra early, about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning the next day, and drove back up there because I hated the thought of that deer being out there and me not being able to follow through on the hunt. It was crazy because when I was going in and searching for that deer, I had opportunities to shoot another deer. I'm going, “You can't. You got to find the one you shot?”
I've been in that same position. It was crazy. I tell you a story similar story. I shot a buck on a property that we hunt on all the time. I’m not sure that I hit it. I found my arrow. It was good blood. There's a difference in blood when you shoot something. It’s bubbly, bright red blood. I shot this deer. It was a little buck. It wasn't huge. It was a 4 by 4. It might even been a 3 by 3. I don't remember. This is a few years ago. I was like, “It's better to let it lie. I'll come back first thing, first light. I'll find it where I hunt.”
It's a ton of overgrowth acorn or shrub oak. They'll bury themselves in there. When they've been hit, they go and seek shelter to die. I figured, “It's pitch black. There's no full moon. I'm out here in headlamps. I'm seeing good blood. I’ll mark the last blood and I'll come back.” I never found that deer. I spent sixteen hours looking for this dear. I would go back, track blood, circle, and go on every part of 50 acres. I hiked 20 miles that day, looking for this little buck. The reason I was doing it was for the meat but this was the ethics behind it.
The morality of it.
I jumped a buck. It was 19 times the size and I was 20 yards from him. This guy was carrying my bow with me. If it's a wounded animal, you don't want the thing to suffer. Where I hunt, you're not going to put it down with a pistol. It's illegal to put it down with the pistol if you have an archery tag.
They say that. I always carry a pistol with me. I don't care for that. I carry it because people kill people. I hate those nut jobs out there.
There's more chance of me in this state, maybe not so much in Montana, that’s a human interaction.
I'm not being paranoid. I liked having a pistol with me. I started with a big old 44 Ruger Vaquero wheel gun. I'm going, “This is too heavy.” I switched to a semi-Springfield XD.
My buddy, Caleb Brewer, was on Danger Close Jack Carr’s Podcast, which is an excellent podcast if you haven't listened to it. Caleb has been down in Tucson, Arizona. He's a big backcountry bowhunter, Stick Sniper Archery. Check them out. Caleb is an amazing person. He's a former Green Beret. He carries a pistol. The reason why he carries, and I didn't realize this until I listened to him and Jack on Danger Close, is he's down on the border.
Think about where he hunts. That place is so dangerous.
He's not carrying a 10-millimeter. I carry a 10-millimeter because I'm dealing with big bears. He's carrying a Glock 40 or 357 or human round.
My 40 cali goes with me when I decide to go lighter but think about the country where he's at. I had mentioned living in Arizona. I was up North in Cave Creek for three years but one of my good buddies, Josh Wilson, is from Tucson. I got to spend a lot of time down there. I became fond of the culture down there. We would go to Sonoita Rodeo in Sonoita, Arizona, which is West of Huachuca.
I remember the first time I would be down in that area. I go. “What's that white blimp floating there?” They go, “It’s a big blimp of cocaine. It’s for everybody. That's an Arizona dispensary.” The point is that's monitoring the border. Border patrol is huge down there. During Sonoita Rodeo, you almost do a CS. We would take off, grab a bunch of beers, hop in the truck, and drive. The movie with John Wayne, McLintock, the old house where they filmed is on the border. I remember Josh going, “Check this out.”
Is it the original John Wayne movie McLintock?
I remember him going, “Let's hop in the truck.” We're barreling South of this rodeo. Within minutes, your phone is going, “Welcome to Mexico.” There was no border, fence, or wall. McLintock house was right there and it was awesome. I go, “This is on the record but off the record.” We are sitting there and having beers. It was so cool because we would go by border patrol guys. They are happy to see you out there. We're hauling ass, hanging out, and checking out cool shit. You're vulnerable at any point in time. I don't know enough to know about how the cartel functions but there are things that happen all the time out there.
That's how I got to know special operators back when I was working for Monster Energy. They had purchased the Baja 1000 or one of the main title sponsors of it. We had to bring all the shit down to Mexico. You need a security force. They hired Navy SEALs to take us across the border and be our security tail. They want rock and roll. Some of these divas with the death threats they get, I can't even imagine what Taylor Swift's security details are. I used to work for Rihanna and Madonna. The dudes that protect those people are some of the coolest motherfuckers you will ever meet and the scariest, all at the same time.
You know what they're capable of and what they've been there or done that.
It's not Kevin Costner.
Clint Eastwood in In the Line of Fire.
They're more like Patrick Swayze but cooler.
You and I talked about this before when you encountered Secret Service guys. You're a normal guy.
You've done presidential stuff and so am I.
When you show up, you're like a normal dude and they're elite dudes. When they can dumb down their rhetoric and feel like they're drawing you into the team, you sit there and be like, “I'll let you know about anything I see that's weird.”
That's part of their plan.
Their psychology is amazing.
The weirdest thing I have ever done was Obama's Democratic National Convention. It was right here in Denver. We were the staging provider for it. The company I work for, shout-out to All Access, built the entire thing. They hired the Super Bowl half-time. I was doing a bunch of Super Bowl halftime shit. The designer did the Democratic National Convention.
What year was that again?
It is 2008 or 2009.
Has it been that long? The reason I even asked is because we've never gotten lacks since 9/11. I feel like we are. That's where I'm going with this.
Maybe I've had too much tequila but the Bud Light can is everywhere.
They want to take our attention to something else. We are constantly at threat. I don’t want to be that paranoid guy running around.
This show is more to showcase you, Mike but we're going down this road and I'm going to voice my opinion. The Ukraine-Russian war that's happening is a diversion. I hate to say it. It's dividing our country, which I don't care what side you're on. I don't care if you have a Ukrainian flag on your front porch or if you're the guy who's still flying the American flag. Look into the history and the facts. This is the same thing. You want to bring it back to nature and natural selection.
This is when he dropped and everyone was like, “This guy exists.”
I don't want to break my train of thought because we've dove all over the place. We started with rodeo and photography. I love you being here, Mike. This is why you're here. It feels funky. It doesn't feel like America. It feels like a lot of diversion and smoke and mirrors. Whether you're listening to Joe Rogan, who I love, on CNN, or Fox News, everything is smoke and mirrors.
Thank God for Joe Rogan because I feel like he has the most honest opinion and is unbiased. What I'm getting down to is there are so many issues that we have at home that we need to look at ourselves on an individual basis, a country basis, or an American basis. Before we start sticking our noses, everybody else is fucking problems.
That's not profitable.
Jeremy, you're right.
You want to get down to it in corporations.
I came into the studio about that book I'm listening to by Tom O'Neill called Chaos. If you get a chance, check it out. I don't care whether you want to read or listen to it. It gets deep. I'm still at that compelling point where I'm going, “What am I going to find out at the end of this factual information?” We're talking about Evergreen. This is where we're at. I live in all transparency on Upper Bear Creek. I'm cruising down here. I got to be here for this. I'm going down the road and I see a gentleman with his thumb out. You don't see hitchhikers on Bear Creek.
This guy had to be on mushroom.
Not at all.
You should have picked him up.
I pick him up. He's a local. For those of you who don't know it, Phil, I can drop your name here. You don't even read a blog post. I saw him and went right past him. I beeped and turned around. I rolled out my driver's side window and said, “Hang on, Phil. I got to do a U-turn. I’ll come get you.” He still doesn't recognize me. I pulled up and Phil was like, “Mike, what's going on? There are so many people who drive by me. The newbies who don't know me probably think I'm some weirdo.” I was like, “I don't know, Phil. I'm a local.” He goes. “You know me.” You won't know him but he's an old Vietnam vet. He's a badass. He has seen his fair share shit.
Was that the dude when I came to your house?
Yes, he was sitting outside. It was Phil.
That's awesome. Shout-out to Phil. I know him as a kid.
He's a badass. I was explaining to him this book I'm listening to. He was saying the same thing. He goes, “We're in a weird funk.” The only reason he was something for a ride was because he had new tires on a truck that he bought. He has a 110% badass vehicle at his house but he was thumbing a ride to get down to the lake over here where his truck was parked.
He’s going camping in the woods.
No, he's not camping in the woods. He has an awesome house.
He’s an old-school dude.
The sun is going down. People aren't going to be able to see him very well in about another ten seconds so I go, “I'm going to pick him up.” He was like, “Mike, what's up?” We got into this similar conversation we're having where in ten minutes, it was going to take for me to get to town. He goes, “We’re in a funk.” I was explaining what I was listening to. I was like, “This stuff has existed forever.”
Think about the 1960s. How much the American public was lied to? Look where we're at.
That's the thing that's happening.
We're doing the same thing.
There's that but also the mask has been ripped off and everybody is questioning everything. Anybody who's got access to the internet is scratching their head. Even the most normal person of a normal person, who's not even interested in getting deep into anything, is scratching their head going, “That's counter to what I heard several years ago.” The loss of trust in every Institution is like dominoes falling. It's bad for everything.
There is a loss of trust in every institution. It's like dominoes falling, and it's bad for everything.
We're screwing ourselves because we have instant gratification and media. Anything you want to hear, any opinion, or medical opinion, if you Google search it, you're going to find exactly what you're looking for because everybody has an opinion.
Is it going to suck when the last utility that fails is Instagram? The water and food are gone. Instagram is still there and you're scrolling through it.
Is it truly a utility? Yeah, and we're talking about it. It's built this platform.
It's a big reason why you have some of the success that you did.
It's not even a question.
The internet is the last utility to fail.
Bobby and Jeremy, think about this. I'm less than 50 South of 20,000 followers.
When you came in here, it was 3,000.
It’s something like that.
You are smoking us.
Why am I even going, “I've got this?” It’s because there's power behind that. That's why they came up with this “influencer” thing. I get asked to do certain things that I didn't before. Where do I go with it? I don't know. What I do know that I want to do is grow my art. It is not only photography for what it stands for but I want to generate sales. I don't have a livelihood that is on a salary basis like I did for the last several years. This is the first time in my life I've been at the crossroads where I got to go, “Can I take photography full-time like your Click Thompson's and other photographers out there?”
You made that commitment already, Mike.
I never admitted to anybody until I came back from my trip to Guatemala, where my good buddy Rob Hendrickson said, “Mike, when are you going to admit to people that you're a photographer? When you're going to say, ‘This is what I'm capable of,’ and this is what you can do?” It takes things like platforms like Instagram to go, “I can do this.”
It's more than that. It's on you, Mike. It's holding yourself accountable. That's the only reason I've had any success at this. Anybody can start something. A lot of people think they can't. I encourage them to do it. If it doesn't work for you, quit. There's no shame in that.
Failure is a beautiful thing because that's learning.
Don't ever leave that question in the back of your mind like, “Should I have done this?” If you're thinking about it, do it. Let's go. Get on the horse and nod your head. That's where you love it. That's where you thrive. It shows in your work. You're passionate about what you do. I don't think that there's anything that I envisioned Michael Pintar doing other than taking badass photos of people doing incredible shit and freeze-framing it in the best light to portray in a moment. That shit happens so fast.
When you go to a rodeo and you see a bull come out of a shoot and a cowboy on it, he might only be on that bull for half a second. You can freeze frame 10,000 of a second if you want to if the light's good enough and you're in the right setting. You are capturing that moment at the perfect time when the cowboy can appreciate it, the stock contractor, the rodeo, the magazine cover, yourself, or anybody else who appreciates your artwork on Instagram. There's power in one finger press of a camera. It's so cool. That's amazing to me. That's how I look at it. To me, what's crazy is I know how many photos are probably out there that are underlying. You chose it to go to post-production. I know you're not a huge post-production guy.
I’m the worst post-production guy. I take so long to do my work.
You chose that photo because it is a good photo. You think that it's worth putting your name, signature, and autograph and put it up for somebody to hang on their wall, you put it on your Instagram, or this is worthy of a magazine cover. That is your standard. I don't want to put words in your mouth but when you choose that and you say, “This is good enough. This is how I want my work portrayed and seen. This is my legacy,” I don't know if you go that deep but I have.
I have to. I'm on the back end of my life. I have to think about a legacy.
That’s why, on this show, I've genuinely tried to be myself. I don't care if I curse or screw up on the ums or the filler words. I'm trying to be myself. After I'm dead, my kids can go back and read this. This is something that’s archived. To bring back full circle, it's cool. That is one click of a camera. You chose it and put it up. You maybe did a little bit of light or color correction. You put your spin on it and look what it's turned into. It’s wall art that's hanging in here, Mike. I love that photo. The bison means so much to me. Every time I walk out of the studio, what's the first thing you see?
Is that fun? Thank you for hanging that in here. It's ironic to take it deeper when you walk out of the studio. The reason why I put it right there is that it's the first thing that they see. I want them to feel like, “I had a good time.” We got deeper but it's not deeper than I wanted to get but I'm shaking the dust off. We had a good time. I hope that they had a moment here that made them realize who they are more as a person.
There's a different level of cognitive function when you put these headphones on, you sit down, have a moment, and silence your phone that everybody is missing. There are only two places where you can get it. You can get it in the backcountry or have a conversation like this. It's a big deal because of the fact that we are setting aside the inclination to have to pick up the phone and look at something. We're having a conversation and covering everything. The gamut is huge from everything we're trying to do. It's Shaking the Dust Off. You talk about that picture. Shout-out to JR Iannaccone and Bistro Del Lago, the local restaurant here.
I watched the show the other night. That's so rad.
JR said, “Mike, let's bring some of your art here.” My gal, Jennifer, was supporting me and helping me to put up that art in there. There's no doubt about it. There are costs involved when it comes to putting your stuff up.
It’s walking distance from here. We have to borrow a bottle of tequila.
We had to decide what art to put up. One of them was going to be Shaking the Dust Off. I remember a friend of mine that I've known for a long time when I first moved to Colorado, Greg Howard, who had managed Phantom Canyon Brewery down in Colorado Springs. Greg is a great guy. I finally made it public during or after COVID. He saw what I wrote about it.
It was called Shaking the Dust Off because anybody who's worked in the restaurant industry has taken so much shit from the crap. It was such bullshit what they got handed to them. I posted that, not thinking about that at the time but when I thought about it, here's somebody who came to me and said, “Mike, I looked at that picture and I started crying. Can you make it available for print?” That's when I did that. I caught that picture in Yellowstone. I’m patiently waiting. I saw this big bull sitting there in this white, volcanic-looking sand stuff. These guys are great. I love the fact that they supported my picture. I don’t even know where it is at. It might be on my website. It’s probably not even on Instagram.
I reposted a photo of it. When you gifted that to me, I was so honored. It is cool. I love that. The bison is iconic in America. I have an infatuation with them. I don't know if I told you what I did but I got to go on a primitive bison experiment in Boulder.
You have a show on it.
Check this out.
This is amazing.
These are some of the tools I use.
You use these to part out and cut. How do you take this and hold it? Are you wearing a glove? What were they doing?
It was a learning lesson.
Primitive means I'm going to hold it in my hand the way somebody from a primitive level would have done this.
The archaeologists who were conducting the experiment asked us to only use natural elements that these people from many years ago might have had available. There are all kinds of different stones but this is blooded. I use this on the bison.
What am I holding in my hand? Describe this to the audience.
Look at how big that is. I don't know what type of stone it is. My buddy Donny Dust could tell you exactly what it is because he made it. This is a different stone.
I can hold it but you can feel how this could cut.
You should have felt it when it was first made.
Hair, everybody knows, will doll the hell out of a blade. You have to go through that. It starts there and gets through all the layers. With this thing, you can feel how this cut. I remember you talking to me about how this was something that you went out and did. You can't trade that experience for anything in the world.
You can't explain it here. We spent the entire day together. I've done two full episodes on it if you want to go and read them. One is with Donny Dust. We've had him multiple times. He’s a primitive survival expert knapper. He's a guy that had all the badass equipment, Force Recon and Marine. I hope I'm getting that right. He is a crazy Marine and military vet.
At some point, he was like, “I don't need this $300 sleeping bag and Petzl harness to go rock climbing. I don't need this Matthew's bow that costs $1,100. I don't need whatever.” He went back to a primitive culture. He's got two incredible books. I'll give you a couple when you leave. They are signed. He brings a stack of them. He’s like, “Give this to cool people.”
He's got books, Scavenger and EARTHROAMER. I highly recommend that you read those. He's been on the TV show alone multiple times. He works as a Hollywood set medic. He knows how to save somebody's life in the wilderness, from a rattlesnake bite to an arterial bleed. He knows what he's doing. We've gotten even deeper into some of his episodes. He was a special agent for the government of the United States of America.
He’s not running CIA stuff.
This is the type of art that he creates. This is a work of art.
Did he find it or create it?
He made it.
He's gotten so good at it that CU Boulders hired him to recreate points from different eras in time, whether it was 4,000 or 7,000 years ago. They want to recreate something, reverse engineer it, and test its effectiveness against the closest thing they have to a megafauna creature. Bison are the closest thing that we know to a woolly mammoth. They make hundreds of these and test these stone projectiles with their effectiveness, where they break, and different construction methods from different eras.
I reached over and gravitated to this because this is what we would think of as a traditional arrowhead. They would wrap that and put that down.
A lot of people don't recognize that this is an atlatl dart. This is mainly what they were testing because they think that this is what they hunted big animals with, including bison. It's a spear. It's a giant dart. They use this to throw it. Do you know the thing you use to throw your dog like a tennis ball? That's an extension of your arm. On the back, there's an indention. You hook this on the back of it and think about how much more penetration you can get. Jeremy, stand clear.
What the hell's happening in here?
You have no idea. I almost hit you with a dart. You got a dart in your neck.
I had the archaeologists on that's doing all these studies. His name is Dr. Devin Pettigrew. We did a full experiment. Half of the experiment was testing these different throwing methods and the tools. The second half of it was about how these tools work in the processing. We started on a full bison butchering it with nothing but stone tools.
We've all thrown like a stick at something and made a dart out of but I was wondering about the leverage that they thought to be able to do that. That's going into a buffalo. Look at what that's doing in the aftermath.
We set up high-speed cameras. I forgot the name of the camera we were using.
This is your video.
It's part of his experiment. You can go and read all about this. He did a full scientific dissertation. This guy has a doctor in his title. He's got a PhD in Archeology. He's reverse engineering stone tools and their effectiveness. This is his study. I want to bring it back to one of the main questions I wanted to ask you. As an aspiring photographer, it's something that I truly have a passion for and so many people do. There are a lot of people out there who are incredible photographers, whether it's landscape or wildlife.
I've been so fortunate with this platform, some of the people I know, where I live, some of the publications I've had, and the mentorship I've had along the way. If there was an aspiring rodeo photographer out there or a photographer in general, what's the best advice you could give them? I'm a huge fan and I would love to turn you on to it. You've probably already read this. Have you checked out any of Steven Pressfield's stuff?
Yes. That's automatic.
I could listen to that over and over again. His audiobooks are only 2 or 3 hours. It's something that you can throw on repeat and still pick up little parts and pieces. It’s so intricate. That's an art form in itself. He is a writer. On the photography level, there are so many different styles of photography. I gravitate to certain things, like my buddy Matt Lingo and Luke Peelgrane. There are so many badass photographers.
There's so much out there. This is what I was talking about earlier. How do you become original in a non-original world? I was up in Vail Wine Classic, where my gal, Jennifer, was working. David has this stuff in a place up there. I recognized the picture with a malamute but a wolf-looking dog. On that one right in the middle, there's this deal.
How do you become original in a non-original world?
It looks like there's a wolf in a bar.
We all know what that picture is.
There's a guy holding a tennis racket.
That’s the village people. Look in the back on the left of that picture. The continuation of the people is you got the construction worker, cowboy, and Björn Borg tennis player-looking dude, which wasn't part of the village people.
It fits the photo.
It looks like John McEnroe on the guitar but it's probably not.
It’s John McEnroe.
He’s one of my idols. I played tennis for several years. Look at the creativity.
This is incredible but it doesn't do it for me. To each his own.
Look at the Brooklyn Bridge. How can it not be? I don't even look at the car.
I hope that's his girlfriend because she's in a lot of the photos.
She takes place in a lot of the photos but I've always said, “What you have to do makes you move around the page.” I immediately gravitate to the Brooklyn Bridge. I started with her. Let's be obvious.
Is that how it works?
They say it's thirds but how do you break up the thirds?
In a photography class, there are leading lines. If you go back to this, those buildings are leading lines to her.
I don't mean to use mine as an example but let me show you some of what I do. If you go to my page, it's covering corner to corner. I'll experiment once a month. I’ll do something and go, “This work.” I take a chance on it. I don't have to have every single element of the animal in there.
Is the horse's nose full face in there?
The nose is in there. You have to pull the page up a little bit.
That is perfect composure.
What I learned a long time ago goes for taking human photography.
Look at the sunlight in that.
The angle and shadows on there. Look at the strap on the right. It shadows off the hip of the horse. You don't have to have everything in there. Let your imagination do what it's supposed to do. If you look, it's a left corner to a right corner. It flows. There's motion in there.
You're riding the bull or the horse.
Either way, the point is that motion is there. Look at the mane of the horse, the shafts, and the action. For example, see the left front there. I'm above the knees. Somebody taught me a long time ago when I read this. If you're going to photograph people or animals and you're going to crop, as I do in this case, make sure you're at least above the knees as much as possible. That's my little bit of a hint on how I do some stuff. If you're below that and you're in the shin, there's something awkward about it. I don't know where that comes or stems from but you'll see that in a lot of mine. Sometimes you'll see me willy-nilly and throw it out there. This is one of my most recent pictures.
That is an incredible photo. This is why I stopped on your page. Anything you post, I want to look at because it's worth it.
I'd love it and thank you.
It's worth the time to look at it.
Everybody has their niche. There's a gentleman by the name of Chris Maestes. We ran into each other in Billings, Montana a couple of years ago. I walked into the bar. I'm not a big Marvel Comics guy but he goes, “You're one of those ten people that when I open up Instagram, I know it's a Michael Pintar picture.” I said, “What do you mean?” I was flattered. He said, “I know when you've done a picture. It's what you do and you have your little MO to it.”
How do you stay true to that?
I don't know because I'm trying to stay original as much as I can or break it up. How do you do that? I don't know. I'm starting to see other photographers take on some of what I do and start to crop in. Let's be honest. We crank up a few things here and there, right or left, in the post-processing part of it. It seems to be what people gravitate towards when it comes to what I'm doing. Hopefully, next time, I'll be sitting here talking beyond that.
I hope you own this motherfucker the next time you are here. You've grown so fast with good reason. I appreciate your friendship more than anything. Fuck everything else. I don't mean to come off that way but you're genuinely a good person. That goes a long way. You are sharing some of your secrets. A lot of artists don't do that.
I want to share it every time.
My buddy, Jason Loftus, is like that. Those are the people I want to have. I have helped other people in the podcast space. That is so important. You're in such a niche photography setting in professional rodeo and becoming a professional rodeo photographer. I'm sure there's a small amount of people who want to aspire to be that.
This is why I shoot wildlife and elk that are in the rut because they're crazy and they're wild animals. You are capturing those moments of anger, athleticism, and true character. You can portray a character in an animal like you did with this bison like Shake the Dust off. It's capturing those moments right to me and you portray that so well.
To the young aspiring photographer, whether you're shooting supermodels coming down the runway, there's an art form behind the composure and all that stuff. You have to be genuinely passionate. You have to find your niche and lane. Above and beyond that, there are so many artists whose work isn't seen. Being on a public platform is number one. Share your work.
You can be Vincent van Gogh but if you don't put your painting on a wall on a display for somebody to come see, nobody is going to know you're the greatest artist. You have to share it, which is the first hurdle, whether you want to start a podcast, be a radio DJ, a YouTuber, or a social influencer. If you want to be a good photographer, you have to share your work. The hardest hurdle for me was sharing it. I was forced to as a photographer. I was hired to shoot it.
You can be the best artist, but if you don't put your paintings on display for people to come and see, nobody's going to know you're a great artist.
You decided to get into it.
I decided to get into it because I thought it would be an easy job. A little that I found out it is not. All that weight on your shoulders is like, “You're the photographer for Slayer tonight and the band. They better be happy with what you create. They worship the devil. We will sacrifice you tonight.” No, it wasn't that bad. That's how I felt. Finding Kerry King in the right light with all his chains and metal, I love Slayer. Even beyond that, I was like, “To be rejected by somebody that you love would be the worst feeling in the world.” Your mother threw you into a river to die, that was the weight on my shoulders.
How about trying to learn to accept that you're not going to be able to get everything? That's the hardest part of it.
There are moments that you know in the rodeo arena that you are like, “I missed that.”
I run the risk of missing more shots than getting them. I'm a still photographer. If I want to take advantage of technology, which my cameras are more than capable of doing, I could buy huge amounts of video cards, do video, and pull stills from that. There's another little hint for all of you out there aspiring photographers. Do video. It pays better.
Even these cameras on the phone are upgraded.
You invested in your camera.
That's what that guy does. He pushes the bar. That's what you're doing in the rodeo community. I'm sorry, we’re diving all over the place and keeping you here super late. Let's dial it back. My main thing for this show is what I can get out of it. I'm selfish. I'm an aspiring photographer. What advice would you give to me if I wanted to become a rodeo photographer?
Even in rock and roll, it's who you know and not what you know. How do you stand out? How do we break those cycles and cultures? Your work has to be over and above yours to raise an eyebrow and be like, “This guy is getting magazine covers. He's getting 20,000 followers in a year.” That's not bullshit. You're not buying those. There are people who buy followers.
How do you do that?
You spend a couple of thousand dollars and you can get a couple of thousand followers.
Isn't that bots? I don't even know what that stuff is.
It’s called lying. You are a liar.
You can't do that. Shout-out to JR. I've got your Bistro Del Lago head. He designed it after The Godfather. Here's the thing. Photography is not a cheap sport or hobby. Anybody can go out and get a camera. I started with a point-and-shoot. Somebody told me a long time ago, “You have an eye for this.” Apple Shooter can do this. It is what I kept telling myself.
I honestly meant it when I said that I did not call myself a photographer until a few years ago. I mean that because there was this mentality that you can't make a living doing that. You have to go out and find an honest job with a salary and full benefits. I'm still learning that at my age. The thing with photography is that years ago when I tried to get on a bull, I knew if I was going to be good or not. I didn't know businesses do it anyway. I was born and raised in Milwaukee.
The point is I wanted to do it. I wanted to dip my toes in the water. If I was good, cashed a few checks, and won 1 rodeo or 2, that was what I needed to prove to myself. That's where I got at that level. There was this artistic side that was always there. Something about it told me that maybe I could get into photography.
You have to fill the furnace burning.
It was always there. It was always looming. I didn't need people to tell me you have an eye for it anymore. If you're going to get into it and you think you're an aspiring photographer, be willing to make some type of monetary investment because it does require equipment. If you want to get down to the brass tacks of what you need to get going, you're going to need at least a decent camera body to shoot most rodeos. You need at least a 70x200 millimeter camera lens and have primes.
For those who don't know what primes are, if I buy an 85-millimeter or a 50-millimeter, that's what it is. If it’s 85, it's 50 millimeters. If I buy 400 millimeters, it's 400 millimeters, which 400-millimeter lenses are $10,000 plus. Don't be afraid to make that investment. Camera bodies are the most expendable piece in your arsenal. DSLR took a big change a while back and we have mirrorless. I shoot mirrorless camera bodies. I made the investment in them. It’s fewer moving parts. I don't like the lenses as much.
I shoot Canon. All the Canon lenses I had before going mirrorless are solid-state. They could handle rodeo. They were made for it. If it rained, snowed, or you dealt with any of the elements, the sand and dust are kicking up, they handle it better. With Canon, when you came up with your mirrorless stuff, we have these articulating lenses. That means when I shoot with my 70x200, the lens will move in and out from the actual body.
It's still automated but there are moving parts. What do moving parts do? They create an opportunity to break down. The previous 70x200 F28 lenses, for those who understand a little bit about photography, that is the sharpest lens you can shoot with that gives you the most reach for shooting close to what you do like I do. That F28 draws in more light. It's fast. It's a good all-around lens but before, it was all built-in. All the mechanics were built into that lens. Now, they came up with this.
They were like, “We're going to go lighter.’’ They call it Canon RF 70x200 on the mirrorless end but what happens is it's shorter. When you try to reach out and touch someone, the lens articulates out, and all that opening happening there, even though they still say it's capable of handling the weather, opens up the opportunity for dusting there to get in there. Is it built for rodeo? Hell to the no but that's what I shoot with. I'm going to beat the shit out of that stuff. I'm going to come back to Canon and go, “Can I be on your team to say, ‘Can we rebuild things a little bit?;” Someday, hopefully, they invite me to do that because that's what we need in rodeo.
They should because those are the worst elements out there.
We shoot 24/7 around the clock. I told you before. The rodeo ends on September 30th and starts on October 1st. You're shooting in all elements of the year. You have indoor rodeos when the weather gets cold.
Dust is the worst enemy of electronics. When it gets wet, it turns to mud.
I was cleaning off my lens. I go, “How does the dust get in there? I have no idea how it got in there. You tell me. You're the ones who created it, Canon.” I don't mean to call out Canon. I'm just saying that we have to work on that. To wrap this up, if you're an aspiring photographer, anytime, DM me on Instagram or Facebook. Go to my website. You can always text me. I want to be able to answer every question you have about how you get into doing what we're doing. For the longest time, nobody was there for me on that. I had to learn on my own. I want to create a way for people to not be discouraged.
This is an open invitation.
It is an absolute open invitation. I've been asked to do a school somewhere along the way here to say, “This is what I do.’ That would be me teaching somebody how to fly fish. I can fly fish like a motherfucker but I’m not the best teacher because I'm self-taught. When it comes to photography, I've done a lot more studying. I've learned what works and what doesn't. We'll focus on that.
It's very gracious of you as an artist. This is when I feel like I've found a true artist like Steven Pressfield, Joe Rogan, or Jason Loftus. These guys are not afraid to share their secrets. They want to make everybody better. They're still badasses. They still do what they do. They're an open book. It's huge. I've tried to be that way.
I'll get into how I post-process my images. I don't care. Why not?
I need you to give me some lessons. I want to take your approach and post-process in my wildlife photography because what you do is awesome. Jason is the same way. You guys are similar in post-processing. I don't know how to explain it. Thank you so much for being here. Mike, you're welcome here anytime.
I love you, brother.
Thanks for reading, everybody. We'll catch you on the next one.
Important Links
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Episode 97 – Past Episode
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Fourth Episode – Past Episode
Luke Caudillo – Past Episode
Scott Enderich – Past Episode
Dustin Jacoby – Past Episode
Danger Close Jack Carr’s Podcast – Past Episode with Caleb Brewer
Donny Dust – Past Episode
Dr. Devin Pettigrew – Past Episode