05/18/2026
Out of 9 nominations in the Americana Color Awards I received two 2nd’s, a 3rd place and three Honorable Mentions. This 2nd place in the Sports category was shot at the Omak Stampede of their annual Native American Su***de Race. This is the only day they race in daylight, basically ride 30 meters to this almost cliff, ride down to and through the horse head high river, up the opposite bank and along the levy to the rodeo ring for one lap and whoever crosses the finish line first, both horse and rider, wins. Plenty of horses have crossed the finish line riderless but they don’t get the win for that, gotta have your human aboard. Today’s example was our competitor with the red, white, and blue streaming from his helmet in the upper right, he had to swim across well behind the others. Not having seen the race before I anticipated their path, all the hoof prints made that easy, and rather than try to get really close to the action like I do when I have more control over a shot, I backed off and used my 500mm f/4L lens to make it appear as an aerial photo. That shows the steepness of the bank they were riding down, steep. Did I mention it was steep? This was originally shot for the Scenic Byways of Washington State project.
