Riding, Roping, & Shooting with Louise Serpa in Santa Cruz County

By Jan Cleere 

Labor Day weekend means rodeo time in Sonoita, Arizona. Cowboys from across the country converge on the tiny community to be recognized as the best in their field whether it be bouncing on a bucking horse, struggling to stay atop an ornery bull, or chasing calves across the arena.  

No one enjoyed these events more than the woman who risked her own safety to shoot these cowboys’ antics. 

With her nose buried in the dirt and her eye glued to a camera, Louise Larocque Serpa became the first woman sanctioned by the Rodeo Cowboys Association to venture inside the arena and shoot some of the most exciting and incredible photographs of rodeo action. The dust and dirt of the arena became Louise’s lifeblood for almost fifty years—photographing rodeos across the Southwest including almost every rodeo in Arizona.  

One of her favorite stops was the Sonoita rodeo in Santa Cruz County. Organized in 1914, the fairgrounds remain the community heart of Sonoita today.  

“I’d sleep in the back of my station wagon if there were no motels,” Louise once said. If she was lucky enough to find an affordable motel, she would use duct tape or tinfoil to blacken out the bathroom window and produce proof sheets overnight. 

Soon, she began earning recognition and awards for her work. After winning a belt buckle from ProRodeo Sports News for the best action photograph of 1982, she proudly admitted she “wore that belt buckle to bed the first three weeks I had it.” 

In 1994, Rodeo was published, a book of some of her best shots including many from Sonoita competitions. 

In 2000, the Sonoita Quarter Horse Show, which has run continuously since 1936, received historic recognition from the American Quarter Horse Foundation. Louise was honored at the ceremony for her many years of documenting the performances with her photography.  

Around the same time, she began photographing working ranches with the idea of producing a book. She said, “The West is phasing out of the ranching business. There is so much history behind so many of these people. The whole story is in their faces.” The Bell and Guevavi Ranches in Nogales were two that she photographed. 

But time was catching up with Louise and her last project never materialized. She died January 5, 2012.  

Credited with stimulating the popularity of rodeo through her photography, Louise was recognized as “elegant, but not dainty; classy, but not snobbish. She would come adorned with jewelry and leave covered in dirt. She dressed like a lady and drank with the boys.” 

Louise donated her thousands of photographs to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.