Bullish

BULLISH
Seville, Spain – 2024

Three years ago, I took a picture of an imposing mother bear in a rainstorm in Alaska. The image grabbed the eye and held it because the bear was emphatically in a face-off with me and she cut a formidable presence. It looked like my sparring partner would win any battle and therefore I captioned the photograph Bearish.

Early in 2024, I travelled to Seville to photograph the famous bulls of the Miura ranch. They are the most dangerous and revered lineage of fighting bulls in the world. It was not an assignment for the timid, as the behind-the-scenes footage shows. Most of my photographs of this bull failed to convey the immediate sense of threat as this emotion is only evoked by a head on charge, which tends to be challenging to photograph. In a full-on encounter, common sense and self-preservation should instinctively take control to the detriment of the filming.

But in this split second, I felt secure enough to give the camera half a second more. That’s it - half a second. But that was all I needed. Before I entered the arena, I had no preconception of my lens choice or my shooting position because I had no idea what to expect from these bulls. I certainly didn’t expect to so intensely process the trade-off between risk and reward. It was the purest of iterative processes.

The bull has great stature and looks to be a King amongst Kings. He conveys total confidence in himself, as well as an ability to manage the current situation. It was time to marry up the picture Bearish, with a new picture Bullish.
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