Let 'er buck . . .
This book is a collection of 110 color photographs that capture the drama, tension, and excitement of the most dangerous rodeo events - bareback, saddle bronc, and bull riding. Working out of his home base in Tucson, Arizona, photographer John Annerino has taken his camera behind the chutes, where he gets about as close as any observer can to the experience of riding roughstock.
This is a handsomely designed book, and the photographs are vividly reproduced, the images richly detailed, crisp and clear, often filling the pages. In a two-page spread, a cowboy flies to the ground from a bucking bull, while bull fighters in their clown costumes circle the animal, late afternoon sun casting long shadows and illuminating a cloud of dust kicked up around them. The gravel-strewn arena dirt is rough with the hoof marks of countless rides, and beyond a fence festooned with lite beer pennants, the stands are filled with hundreds of spectators, every face turned toward the action.
Annerino's camera reveals that in addition to the stereotypical cowboy, roughstock riders include Native Americans, African Americans, and women as well. And he writes a long essay at the beginning of the book tracing the arrival of the horse and horsemen at the start of the Spanish Conquest, the growth of the cattle industry and the evolution over centuries of the vaquero and in more recent times the emergence of the American cowboy. This is a fine book whose visual images offer an enthusiastic appreciation of the men and women who risk life and limb in rodeo's toughest events.
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