With typical cowboy hospitality, rodeo star Chad Eubank educated me on the daily routine of his ranch in Cleburne, Texas.
I spent the day playing cowboy with, now, good friend, and rodeo star, Chad Eubank, on his ranch in Cleburne, Texas.
Chad competes on "America's Toughest Cowboy" on Spike TV.
Chad invited me and photography buddy, Mark Stites to take photos of he, his fiancee Kim, and cowboy friend Tommy as they branded 60 head of cattle.
I returned home tired, dirty and sunburned.
I smelled like cow and burnt rawhide.
But in the end, this yankee had an experience he will never forget. I branded some cows, rode a gator, a horse and even wrangled a calf with my bare hands! ...I was able to snap a few photos too! I understand now why cowboys wear cowboy hats(Chad, Billy and Kim didn't get sunburned!) and it doesn't seem to matter what you walk in when wearing cowboy boots, unlike my Sketcher hiking boots!
Being a cowboy is hard, physical work, and I joke when I say I got to 'play cowboy'. Having seen Chad on his ranch before, I knew it could be an exhausting day. In reality, the cowboys did all the heavy lifting! It must feel good to feel this much accomplishment at the end of a day of hard work. Mark and I volunteered to put our cameras down to help work the ranch someday.
Trading Places
One of the funniest moments yesterday was when Mark and I traded places with Chad and Tommy. We mounted the horses, then handed our D300's over to the cowboys so that they could take our photos. I wish I had a third camera to snap one incredible image of those two cowboys holding those cameras up to their eyes wearing cowboy hats and chaps, side-by-side. You can't ask for anything better than this!
Where you can find Chad
The America's Toughest Cowboy season premier is January 29th. The show is on Thursdays at 11:00pm eastern time. Best of luck to Chad this season.
If you are in the Fort Worth area, you can watch Chad live at Bulls Night Out during the Fort Worth Stock Show next week. He will compete on Tuesday, January 20th and Wednesday, January 21st at 7:30pm.
View more photos from this photo shoot
View the entire set of images from the cattle branding here.
My guest blogger post about this day on Fort Worth Renaissance.
Read Mark's hilarious account of the day here.
