Roughstock: The Toughest Events in Rodeo

by John Annerino

Few things are as classically American as the cowboy. And the most thrilling real-life setting for a modern cowboy is one of America's fastest growing spectator sports and its most dangerous . . . rodeo, a sport that makes professional wrestling look like a picnic. Now comes Roughstock : the first full-color photography book dedicated to the culture of rodeo -- packed with one hundred ten gorgeous photographs never before seen.
Today's rodeo cowboys -- much like those of yesterday -- are multicultural, with African Americans, Hispanics, whites, women, and Native Americans among the greatest rodeo stars.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published November 23, 2000

About the author

Author and photographer John Annerino has been working in the American West and the frontier of Old México for 20 years, documenting its natural beauty, indigenous people, and political upheaval. A veteran contract photographer for the Liaison International and TimePix photo agencies in New York and Paris, and Marka Graphic Photo in Milano, John's photography is archived in the Time-Life Picture Collection and has appeared in scores of prestigious publications worldwide, including Time, LIFE, People, Newsweek, Scientific American, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times, and National Geographic Adventure. His acclaimed collection of distinguished books feature diverse interests, geographies, and cultures, and range from his most cherished photographic essay, Indian Country: Sacred Ground, Native People, to his most heart wrenching book, Dead in Their Tracks. His celebrated single-artist calendars include Desert Light, Inspiration, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and Mayan Long Count Calendar. John's lifetime commitment to publishing illuminates his "passion to document endangered places, peoples, cultures, and traditions."

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.