Joel’s photos accompany a story written by Garrison Keillor in the July issue of National Geographic Magazine.   Watch your mailbox for the issue, or view it online here.  Helping with research for the story last summer was definitely one of the more fun tasks I’ve been assigned, and probably the only time in my life I’ll have to quiz someone about the logistics of outhouse racing.

The good folks at National Geographic Assignment (also known as NG Image Sales, their stock agency) have started a blog of their own, revealing Joel’s one of Joel’s not-so-secret culinary vices.  I have a stack of Ben & Jerry’s receipts in my filing cabinet to back it up.  The reckless abandon with which a working photographer can eat is a wonder to behold, either first-hand or while compiling receipts for expenses.   While on assisting Joel for an assignment in the Everglades, Joel introduced me to the sugary joy of Haagen-Dasz ice cream/brownie sandwiches — at nine in the morning, no less.  Ever since, I haven’t been able to walk by a freezer case without feeling the pull.

It’s been a busy spring here in the studio.  Joel had an article in the April issue of NGM, a photo on the cover of the May-June issue of Audubon, and speaking engagements all over the place.  He set out for another NG story on Friday with a Prius full of gear; I’m always amazed at how much that little car can hold.

Since it’s now nice and quiet in the studio, I was cleaning out my e-mail inbox and noticed that I hadn’t yet posted a link to this interview Joel did with NG weekend about endangered species.  Enjoy!

- Katie

Hi folks — just a quick post to let you know that the Burwell rodeo poster Joel wrote about earlier is now available through our website.

Joel gets back from a month-long assignment to Antarctica this week.  Watch for penguin photos coming soon.

- Katie

Hi folks — Katie again.  Joel is currently on assignment, but I wanted to share an article from the local paper about him, the family, and his wife’s experience with breast cancer. Kathy is fully recovered, by the way, and we’re all very grateful that her treatment was a success.

Since this is my first blog post, I’ll try to make it count.

For years I’ve been trying to save things, from endangered species to treasures placed along the curb on trash night. The January issue of National Geographic illustrates the former, the CBS Sunday Morning Show the latter. 

To me it’s a real shame when we don’t think before we act. What we do has real consequences, sometimes forever. It’s my job to point that out. 

All of us can play a role in the future of our planet. Start at home. Turn down the lights and the heat just a bit. Drive a smaller car. Reduce what you buy. Reuse what you buy. Certainly recycle, but think of that as a last resort. Know that every time you pay for something, you’re telling the world that you approve of how the product was made, what it’s made from and the fuel that was used to bring it to you.

Please, spend your money well.

Joel Sartore

Lincoln, Nebraska

January 28, 2009

Hey folks — Katie again. I’ll be posting Joel-related items here from time to time especially when he’s out in the field. This one just came in over the transom and I thought it might be of interest.

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If Joel isn’t out shooting, he’s very devout about garbage night, when the still-useful dregs of our consumer society get piled on the curb. I’ve been along a time or two, and witnessed the aftermath on Wednesday mornings for years: truckloads of treasure in his driveway, ranging from rolltop desks to rusty, tetanus-laden piles of scrap metal.

He recently put together a piece for CBS Sunday Morning on his favorite hobby:

Garden County Historical Society – used with permission (click for full size)

The original photo is in black and white.

Translation: everyone in it must be dead by now.

So often we must guess at what was going on back then, looking past the soft focus, grainy emulsion, and costume clothing.  It was so long ago.  It just doesn’t seem real anymore.  A case in point is this photo.  It’s a panoramic image, surely a rodeo, with cowboys mostly, lined up just so.  Some are smiling.  All are paying attention.  How long did the moment last?  All eyes are on the camera, even those in the audience.  They must have realized they were part of history that day.

What would you ask any of them about the moment this was taken?  Did everyone in town show up?  Was it hot out?  Was it the first time you had ever been in a panoramic photograph?  Most important, was it a really big deal?

On this day, in this photograph, the answer to all of the above is yes.

I should know.  I took it.  In 2006.

Panoramics — especially of people –aren’t done much anymore.  They take time and effort, something we’re short on these days.  Besides photography is hardly new and certainly not special anymore.  We have cameras everywhere now, from the one in your cell phone to the hundreds hiding in ceilings at every casino and Wal-Mart, watching your every move.

It all started when my friend, Dale Seidel called and asked if I could do a panoramic “pitcher” at the next rodeo a few months down the road.  I then forgot about it until the day came on the last weekend of July, 2006.  In his black hat, moustache and western shirt with buttons about to pop off around the waist, Dale came to me during the calf roping event and said, “You just tell me when you want the rodeo stopped and we’ll get ya lined up.”  That made me nervous.  I realized that history was riding on this.

I took a guess and told Dale we should shoot the photo about twenty minutes before sundown.  The arena has a break on the west side, allowing the last light of day to stream right in.

The chosen time came and rodeo announcer Hadley Barrett stopped the show.  A stepladder was dragged out to the west side of the arena.  I motioned for all of the performers to come right on up.  They hesitated at first but eventually came around close, in a circle.  I was using a wide lens, so the closer the better.  And what I saw was amazing.

This was the first time in my twenty-five-year career that a group this big actually paid attention to me.  But this was the 85th anniversary photo after all, so their attitudes bordered on reverence.

Everyone was staring at the black box in my trembling hands.  Trick riders in their colorful outfits were front and center, along with the stock contracter, Bennie Butler, and his hired men, all on horseback.  Around them on foot were the performers – the riders, judges, and clowns.  The audience was on its feet.  The whole place got quiet.

The Burwell Rodeo in 2006 – Photographed by Joel Sartore, Digital Stitching by Michael Jones, West Coast Imaging (click for full size)

I worked fast but at a measured pace so I wouldn’t screw up.  At the top of the ladder I turned slowly in a complete circle, shooting a single, vertical frame every few degrees using a Nikon D2X digital camera.  I did this twice.  Everything would eventually be digitally stitched together into a panorama using Photoshop.

The entire shoot lasted less than three minutes.  I waved to the announcer and he called out, “Looks like we’ve got a keeper folks!” and the crowd applauded and cheered.  In just a couple of minutes it was business as usual, meaning it was time for the chuck wagon races.

The people in Burwell have always thought about their place in time.  Of course they still farm and ranch along the Loup River, but we all know that it’s the rodeo that sets the place apart.  The theater and the motel are named for it, the rodeo grounds long ago listed as a National Historic Site.  The town braces all year for that last weekend in July.

If you go this year, be sure to look for the North Side Bar.  It’s that white, flat-fronted building on the town square, the one with the bronc rider painted on it.  Go in and order a glass of cold beer.  There on the east wall, past the cowboys and the tourists and the farmers just in from cutting hay, is their museum: panoramic photos, framed and yellowed by smoke and sunlight, each taken at a milestone in the rodeo’s march through the years.  They put a new one up last year, sized just right to match the rest.

If you’ve got some time, just ask.  They’ll tell you all about it.

This essay originally appeared in the Winter, 2007 issue of Nebraska History Magazine.