Louise Laroque Serpa: Never Don't Pay Attention

Never Don't Pay Attention

In 1963, Louise Larocque Serpa ’46, former Manhattan debutante, requested a press pass from the Rodeo Cowboys Association and became the first woman photographer ever allowed inside a rodeo ring. Dubbed “the Ansel Adams of rodeo,� Serpa was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1999.

Over the course of her long and illustrious career, Serpa received many awards�“Best Action Photo� in 1982 and “Photographer of the Year� in 2005 from the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association�and had more than one close encounter in the arena. Writing for the Vassar Quarterly (Spring 1995), Carla De Landri ’78 quotes Serpa: “’After that first bull hit me, it took me almost a year before I could stand my ground,’ she recalls. ‘I’d take one picture and find myself up a tree or a fence or something without even knowing how I got there. You know, you can’t take very good pictures when you are running.’ Nor when you’re shooting from outside the fence. ‘I knew if I cried or acted like a woman, I’d never be allowed into the arena again,’ she says. So she kept at it, taking away from her brush with the bull one valuable lesson: ‘Never don’t pay attention.’�

Serpa, who passed away in January 2012, bequeathed her archives to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A selection of her photographs is presented here, courtesy of Tucson Rodeo.

Read Carla De Landri’s 1995 profile of this remarkable free spirit.