Horsin' Around.

There's a reason for the title, last week, or maybe the week before, I attended the Calliope Campdraft. What is campdraft? I'm not too sure exactly either, but what I saw was guys and girls on horses chasing cows and making them run a circuit for points. Essentially like herding cows, pretty good fun, nice country folks out there too. The event ran for two days and I spent a lot of hours there taking snaps, luckily I had a pretty quiet week that week and could afford to sit around and watch all the action.

Never realised how majestic, powerful, graceful and intelligent animals horses were, like, i've always known horses are pretty cool, but seeing them just herd up these animals and literally get in the way of these angry, scared cows and take hits from them, they truly are dedicated animals. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the skill of the rider too, but these horses. Really very impressive. 

 I did feel kind of bad for these cows, beasts, as the locals would call them. The cows are brought into a pen, and the horse and rider have X amount of time to pick out a cow they want in the herd, and try to single it out. Once the cow has been singled out, they have to give a call to the guys who open the gate, the cow runs out the gate and the horse and rider has to guide the cow around an obstacle course in order to score points.

SO yeah, that's my horse day. Was really a lot of fun. Before I forget, I have one more horse, but not related with the campdraft.

This guy and his horse got into the finals of Polocrosse in Qld. Polocrosse = polo x lacrosse.

So that's the end of my horses, what else have I been up to? There was a dance performance I attended a few weeks ago. Dance Around the World. Sort of like.. a whole bunch of performers who dance according to different countries. If that makes sense. So, lots of traditional dance and costumes. That's what it was at first, until it became a lot of interpretive dancing.. then I got a bit confused.. any way, photos.

I like how you can immediately tell which ones are the interpretive dancing performances...

There have been a fair few accidents in GLA lately, I think I covered 3 in a week, which is basically how many I've covered in 7 months of being here, now i've doubled that amount in a week. 2 crashes were non fatals, with the third being a fatal on the highway. I haven't got any photos from the fatal, as i've left them at work, but i'll put those up in my next post hopefully, if I remember.

This crash here was a head on at a T-intersection, don't know who was at fault, but all i'll say is that there was a P plater involved. Actually, thinking back, that fatal was caused by a P plater too - who didn't die, killed a 54 year old minding his own business. They're the worst ones.

Just to be clear, i'm not sure if this guy was involved or not, I just like his expression at the scene. One person was sent to hospital with head injuries. There was a massive head crash on the drivers side windscreen, where the person has obviously flung out from their seat and smashed their head on the windscreen. Not wearing a seatbelt maybe? no idea. 

From car crashes to sport, stock standard. I like how before I started this job I have ZERO sport in my portfolio. I'd say that a good 40-45% of my folio now is sport related. All news agencies want sport in their folios. Can't ay I don't have enough now.. Anyway. Sport. Rugby Union. 

This one was pretty scary. I had done a similar shot in my older post with some girls hitting the hockey balls at me as I stood behind the net, however, this one was scary cos she was good, and she hurled that ball right at my face. Even though i'm behind a net, seeing that ball come straight down the lens is a little nerve racking. The goals have a metal base, so when the ball slams into it, it makes one HELL of a noise. Earplugs were the way to go on this shoot. lucky I always have some in my bag.

 I really like this shot for a lot of reasons. The look of him, the light and the ball. But for all the things I do like about it, I hate that it's in his backyard. Why? cos he had just finished school and couldn't get to a local rugby park, I wish we had more time so i'd drive him to one to get the shot, but, doesn't matter.

That's about i for me. Thanks for reading =]

until next time,

Ciao.