The day started out to shoot a cover shot for the Rand Hat catalog. The location we were shooting (not the location you see here) was about 70 miles away and I wanted to shoot early because it was July in Phoenix.

When we got up at 3 am (03:00) the temperature was down to "only" 103 degrees F (40 degrees C). We fed & loaded the horses and drove to the location, which was about 10 miles out of Wickenburg, Arizona, 7 miles of this was down a dirt "Road". (A lot of it was more like a goat path.)

When we left the Rio Verde area for Wickenburg, I already knew where we were going to shoot. I have shot all over and near this ranch and other ranches nearby. We arrived, parked and while Craig tacked his horse I got back into my Explorer. Craig already knew where we were shooting so shortly after I had stopped and set up the gear he arrived riding Dogger.

We shot the images we needed for the project, packed up, loaded the horses and the person driving the horse trailer, while turning around, discovered that trailer tire sidewalls do not hold up well to large sharp rocks, which in this part of Arizona are everywhere. The driver was used to driving in the city, not the desert.

Well they had a spare tire and a ramp to run the other tire on to raise up the flat. But they did not have the correct size lug wrench to remove the wheel nuts, which meant we could not change the tire. Fortunately a friend of mine had a ranch about 4 miles further down the road & I knew where he hid the gate key & I knew the combination of the lock on his tool trailer. So I drove down, unlocked everything, found his 4 way lug wrench, locked everything back up, drove back to the trailer and I changed the tire. After I returned the lug wrench and re-locked everything, I drove back to follow the person driving the trailer out to be sure they did not do it again.

When we hit the pavement the person driving the trailer drove to the ranch we had left in the morning while we then drove to the south side of Phoenix to have the film processed. We needed to wait for the film to be processed, about 2 hours, so we went to have a late lunch. We drove back to the lab, I pulled my selects and then drove to the digital lab to have the film scanned.

We then drove back the the ranch that we had left at 4 AM (04:00). By this time it was about 7 PM (19:00) and when we pulled into the ranch we saw this huge black cloud in the distance. Craig, the horsemen in the photo who knows by shooting with me that black clouds with sunshine is rare, and photographically stunning, asked me, "What do you want to do?" My reply was, "I really want to go to sleep!"

But knowing full well I would be mad at myself for wimping out I said "Tack Up Dogger & I'll meet you at COWS coat wash". This is not a place you can find on any map, it's just we had shot so much in the area we named our favorite spots. So I drove out and found where I wanted to shoot Craig & Dogger and as soon as Craig rode up we started to shoot. 2 rolls of film later (about 75 shots) I said "Time for bed!"

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For Photographers

The Gear:
Canon A2 camera 1/250 second shutter speed 64 ISO attached to a
Canon20-35mm zoom lens set 35mm and f5.6 handheld.

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