I’m putting a stake in the Cattle.com bull videos.
Last year we called it off after I couldn’t get a firm yes or no from the people in charge in Denver by the week before Christmas. This year, I’m not going to try.
Why? There are a few reasons, none of them related to cost, nothing to do with the National Western itself, and nothing to do with the bull owners.
The main reason is times have just changed.
The videos we used to shoot just aren't nearly as relevant or necessary as they used to be.
In 2006, when I first went to Denver, videoing a bull on your phone and instantly uploading it to Youtube was science fiction. My Treo was a cutting edge phone back then; iPhones weren’t even announced until 2007.
In 2015, there will be a dozen stall pictures of everything in the yards posted in HD before we even have a chance to download video from the camera. In the time it takes us to get the tripod level, anybody can post a decent quality Vine. Access to technology has come a long way in the past eight years and while I still go back and watch them from time to time, there isn’t nearly the need for what we were doing that there used to be.
If you own a bull and you don’t post at least a dozen pictures/videos during Denver weekend, you are doing yourself a disservice. Don’t know what you’re doing? Hire one of the kids you sell calves to do it for you. If I were in charge at the National Western, I’d put up signs suggesting people do exactly that with a “#BullAlley” hash tag.
I’m going to share everything I can find here.
I want to say thank you to a few folks that made the bull videos possible for nearly the past decade…
The guys at the National Western have been great about letting us go in and shoot video each year. The restrictions rights for video and photography have evolved with the National Western like they did with other livestock shows but they’ve always made an exception for us without asking for anything in return.
The bull owners have put a lot of trust in us with something that they had tens of thousands of dollars invested in.
Wade Fisher busted his ass doing great work for no pay. That dude is BUSY and put in a lot of time on those videos the past few years.
And lastly, thank you guys for watching them.