“Just play. Have fun.”*…
The mud-pit belly flop, a highlight of the annual Summer Redneck Games in Dublin, Georgia
The word “weird” is defined by various dictionaries as odd, bizarre, eccentric and unconventional. And where most of these traits could be considered unsettling, in the world of photography, and specifically sports, it could also translate to a gold mine. The essence of photography is to capture a truly remarkable moment. And many times, different (or weird) can be good. If photographers covered the same events from the same angles, we really wouldn’t achieve anything unique or memorable…
712 people and 600 balls in Manhattan: the world’s largest dodgeball game
Sol Neelman, a self-proclaimed “failed athlete” and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, has turned his lens away from the conventional targets of sports photography…
A Chinese tourist in the dunes of the Sahara Desert tries his hand at sandboarding
Read an interview (from whence, the body quote above) with Neelman here; peruse his portfolio here.
* Michael Jordan
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As we Do It, we might recall that it was on this date in 1893 that “Cowboy Bill” Pickett invented bull-dogging. A 23-year-old cowhand at the time, he rode alongside a stray, dropped from his horse to grab the steer’s horns, and– emulating bulldogs that he’d observed– sharply bit the steer’s upper lip. Soon after, Pickett and his four brothers formed The Pickett Brothers Bronco Busters and Rough Riders Association. He did his bulldogging act, traveling about in Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. In 1905, Pickett joined the 101 Ranch Wild West Show that featured the likes of Buffalo Bill, Will Rogers, and Tom Mix; Pickett was soon a popular performer who toured around the world and appeared in early motion pictures (see below)– though he often had to mask his African-American heritage by claiming (only) his Native American roots. (Even then, while he was in fact part Cherokee, he claimed to be part Comanche.)
As the event became a common rodeo event, lip biting became increasingly less popular until it disappeared from steer wrestling altogether.
