The Ultimate Stock Dog Challenge
When I was originally asked to have a market stall selling prints at the inaugural USD, I couldn’t be more excited! However, I knew I would get bored without a camera in hand all weekend so offered to photograph as well.
Coming up to the event, Jaykeb couldn’t make it so I unfortunately couldn’t do my stall and decided along with the committee to just do the photography instead.
I travelled up there on the Friday night and arrived at around 10:30. I had full intentions of sleeping in my car both Friday and Saturday night, but it was SO COLD. After shivering all night Friday, I gave in and booked a hotel for Saturday night.
The Ultimate Stock Dog Challenge consists of one dog who can compete in three sections.
The paddock consists of a large area with obstacles that the dog and handler must move the sheep through. The yard section is where the dog and handler must move the sheep through a set of yards that included two races and a trailer. The cattle section is similar to the paddock section, just using cows instead.
On Saturday the competitors completed both their yard and paddock sections, with some great runs put on the board. It was a long day of shooting, and I was often spotted laying in the dirt trying to get the best images under the rails. The hard thing about photographing on Saturday was that the yard and paddock sections ran concurrently. meaning I was running back and forth trying to capture as much of both as I could.
Working dog photography isn’t always as glamorous as it seems…
After a long day of shooting on Saturday, I had a very healthy meal of McDonald’s for dinner and headed to my hotel room to turn the heater on and start editing some photos!
Sunday was another chilly start! I had the lovely Sophie from Stock Shots join me for the morning. Sophie had attended Allira Fontana Photography and I’s beginner photography workshop held earlier in the year and was keen to come along and shoot beside me! She was smarter than me and bought towels and blankets for us to lay on.
Thankfully Sunday was just the cattle section, which meant we could stay at the one arena instead of running between the two. We got up close and personal to the action with me nearly losing my 100-400 lens to a kick under the fence!
All in all we had a great day of shooting and watching some talented dogs and handlers.
Nigel Brazier took out the win for the overall results with his dog Brazier’s Sterlo with 202 points and a time of 15.43 seconds!
A massive congratulations to all competitors, the images can be found by pressing the button below. Please enjoy some choice images from the weekend!
