Eight seconds is how long a bull rider must stay on top of an animal to earn a qualified score. For photographer Ivan McClellan, that brief interval became a way of looking at a whole culture, and at a whole decade of work.
The Portland-based photojournalist first published that work in 2024 as Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture. This year, Damiani Books released a second edition, Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion. It adds 91 previously unpublished photographs, a new introduction and a new foreword.
A childhood that did not match the picture
McClellan grew up in Kansas City, where he was familiar with the cowboy image he saw throughout his life. The men on screen looked like John Wayne. He did not connect that image to the people he knew, including a Black neighbor down the street who raised cattle and wore a ball cap and overalls. In his account, that neighbor never seemed like a cowboy to him.
The picture changed in 2015. McClellan went to a rodeo in Oklahoma, where he saw Black cowboys and cowgirls who looked like the people he grew up around. He described men in gold chains and basketball shorts riding bulls, and women with long braids and acrylic nails riding horses at full speed. That visit opened his eyes to black rodeo culture as it lived in everyday life.
That visit started a long project in rodeo photography across the United States. McClellan spent the following years at rodeos, ranches, homes and events, building relationships with competitors and their families. He has said the trip showed him that the myth was the inaccurate part, not the black rodeo culture he already knew.
McClellan’s portraits belong to a long American tradition of documentary photography that treats ordinary communities as subjects worth serious attention. Rare 1936 Migrant Mother Print at Sotheby’s shows how that approach has shaped the way the country sees itself.
What the new edition adds
The cover photograph shows Kortnee Solomon, a Texan teenager and one of the youngest competitors on the circuit. She stands with horses around her, wearing a rainbow-colored shirt and a blue hat. The brim shades her eyes.
McClellan has described the new sequence as a move from landscape toward people. The book opens with the natural setting, then moves closer to the riders and their families. He wanted readers to feel that they had come to know these people over time, rather than watching strangers perform.
Many of the new pictures show what happens between the rides. People dress for competition, talk at the fence and wait with their horses. McClellan has said that those quieter frames show that black rodeo culture is a way of life, not only a sport. Some images also record change over time, such as children who once watched from the sidelines and later entered the arena themselves.
McClellan has compared the book to a later volume in a long catalog rather than a revision of the first. He has said he is not trying to fix the 2024 edition. He is building on it, because his relationships with the subjects have deepened in the years since.
Black rodeo culture in the frame
Jumpmen kick off a Pony Express relay race in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 2021. The riders hold back their horses, which are eager to bolt, until the whistle blows and they sprint around the arena.
Dantey Eldridge, a professional bull rider, sits on a bucking barrel at an 8 Seconds bull-riding training camp in Wasco, Oregon. McClellan’s organization runs these camps at no cost to the riders, with the aim of sharpening their skills. Kortnee Solomon, a 16-year-old barrel racer, appears elsewhere in the book. McClellan photographed her at her ranch in Hempstead, Texas. While they stood talking in the pasture, her horses gathered around to see what the two of them were doing.
Kamal Miller works as an urban cowboy in Carson, California. Here he works a horse at his stable. The horse, glad to be out of its stall, circled for 15 minutes while Miller held the reins.
Trevonte and Randy ride past a Ward Chapel church in Boley, Oklahoma, in 2025. McClellan saw the pair walking down the street, and they paused in front of the church where he was standing. He describes the moment as a chance encounter.
McClellan made this photograph at the Roy Leblanc Invitational Rodeo in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 2022. He calls it his favorite rodeo to shoot at golden hour. Athletes pull on their outfits and prepare their horses as the light fades. Once the sun goes down, the arena fills with energy for the Pony Express relay on horseback.
Spectators fill the stands on a hot summer night in 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. Stadium lights fall across the crowd, and nearly everyone is unmasked. McClellan’s frame records the crowd as it gathered in that moment.
From photo book to rodeo circuit
McClellan’s work moved beyond the page in 2023, when he founded 8 Seconds Rodeo. He wanted Black cowboys to compete for substantial prize money. He said they often earned a few hundred dollars in events where other competitors often took home far more.
The first event drew about 2,000 people and awarded $60,000 in prize money. McClellan says the payouts helped some athletes buy new trucks and trailers and earn their professional cards. The following year, the rodeo moved into a hockey arena and sold 7,200 tickets. By the third year, it had returned to Portland, Oregon, where it began, and added Philadelphia.
McClellan’s documentary, 8 Seconds Rodeo, premiered on October 10. Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion is available from damianibooks.com and bookstores such as waterstones.com, as well as Amazon.
Like McClellan, photographers working in difficult communities often spend years earning trust before making a single frame. Untold Stories Inside 37 Prisons Across 17 States takes a similar long-term approach to people whose lives are rarely shown in full.
The photographs make a simple argument. The arena lasts only eight seconds, but the lives around it run far longer. McClellan’s pictures ask viewers to spend time with those lives before they judge what the American West looks like.
Source: wallpaper.com
Frequently asked questions
What does the second edition of Eight Seconds add?
The second edition, Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion, adds 91 previously unpublished photographs, a new introduction and a new foreword. Damiani Books released it after the original 2024 edition.
Who is on the cover of Eight Seconds: Legacy in Motion?
The cover photograph shows Kortnee Solomon, a Texan teenager and one of the youngest competitors on the circuit. She is wearing a rainbow-colored shirt and a blue hat, with horses around her.
What experience changed Ivan McClellan’s view of the cowboy image?
In 2015, McClellan went to a rodeo in Oklahoma, where he saw Black cowboys and cowgirls who looked like the people he grew up around. That visit opened his eyes to Black rodeo culture as it lived in everyday life and started his long rodeo photography project.
Does McClellan’s organization charge riders for its bull-riding training camps?
No, McClellan’s organization runs its bull-riding training camps at no cost to the riders. The camps aim to sharpen the riders’ skills.
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