From the Arena to the Wild

Let me be honest with you right out of the gate: when it comes to wildlife, I'm a complete rookie.

For the last couple of years, my home has been the rodeo arena, and I've gotten good at it — confident, even. I know the events. I know the rhythm of a go. I can feel those eight seconds coming before the gate ever cracks. Give me a saddle bronc or a barrel run and I'll tell you its story in a way that just might put a lump in your throat. This year I added stills into the mix, and that's been its own beautiful learning curve.

But here's the thing about an arena: it's a known world. The space is enclosed. The animals are doing what they were bred and raised to do, and I know, more or less, what's about to happen and where to point the camera.

Wildlife laughs at all of that.

There's no program out here. No schedule, no fence, no announcer telling you what's next. You don't get to know what the animal will do — or whether it'll even show up at all. Most days, it doesn't. You drive for hours, you sit in the cold, you come home with mud on your boots and an empty card.

And then, once in a while, a full-curl bighorn ram lifts his head out of the dry October grass and looks straight down your lens — and your heart just about stops.

This old fella had clearly seen a lot of winters. You can almost read them in his horns; those deep grooves mark the lean years. He didn't spook, didn't perform, didn't owe me a thing. He just let me share a few quiet minutes in his world. That's the whole gift.

I shot this on the Sony FX3 — the same camera that's filmed every rodeo I've ever covered. The gear, I trust. Everything else out here I'm learning from scratch: the patience, the fieldcraft, the humility of being a guest in someone else's world instead of the one calling the shots.

And honestly? I love that it's hard. Rodeo taught me how to tell a story. The wild is teaching me how to wait for one.

Thanks for following along as I stumble into this new chapter. I've got a lot to learn — and I'd rather learn it out loud, with you.

— Belina | Western Cowboy Chronicles Shot in the Alberta Rockies | Sony FX3