The 2003 Grand National Rodeo and Stock Show was held in a facility built for that purpose on the south side of San Francisco; a place called the Cow Palace. Most of the rest of the time it is a venue for concerts, or assorted events. It was, at one time, long ago, the home of the San Francisco Warriors, before they moved to Oakland and changed their name to Golden State (and never really challenged for a championship again).

These photos were taken on the second to last day, which was followed by a country-rock concert - called the 'Bucking Ball'. It was just a standard concert, with a very high stage, and the crowd gathered generally in the middle of the arena. At one point, it seemed to get shoulder to shoulder, it was that crowded. In fact, the attendance for the late show was unusually large, with very few empty seats. It was just that kind of night, perhaps, the day after Halloween.

During the show, or after the show, people would wander around to the stable areas, a booth area, practice paddocks, and so on. Out back, one could descend a ramp to the large stock barns. These were temporary home to assorted prize winning pigs, goats, sheep, cattle. People would approach and try to pet the sheep, for example, which tended to be very friendly and gentle.

I had just gotten another digi-cam, an Olympus C-4040, the day before the show. I really didn't have the time to learn about the camera. I didn't realize the flash could be boosted. Because it's very dim for the Grand National, at the Cow Palace. And dust is just everywhere - so much so that after awhile you don't even notice it. But the camera does. And so I had to 'Photoshop' a number of these to remove noise and 'grain', essentially by desaturating a bit, reducing contrast, and somehow hoping it didn't look too washed out. In addition, with a long digital zoom, the focus was not quite what it could be. At any rate, for my inexperience with the camera, some things did come out. And it did very well in the low light shots with its built-in noise reduction, as seen particularly in the concert shot, and the Mounties entrance under spotlight only.

There are artifacts from oversharpening in the thumbnails on this site, either that or some photos seem a bit soft. Given that some of these are 800 dots tall or wide, that's pretty large for a 120k filesize, even with Photoshop's multiple pass jpg compression. So the larger, original digital photos are going to look in many ways cleaner and sharper than what you see, here.

[Just a further note to update:

Photos from the subsequent 2005 show will also be included. These used the next generation 5MP from Oly, the C5050 (which except for a planned obsolescence battery problem, is a gem of a camera, and real 'workhorse'). ]