Cowboy Odi is now a published photographer

Multi-faceted US-based Mullingar native Odran ‘Odi’ Fitzgerald has another entry to his CV; he’s now a published photographer.

An engineer by profession, Odi is a keen photographer and loves taking his cameras to rodeos, which he attends with his cowgirl wife Lauren and son Lochlan in his adopted home of South Carolina.

Some of Odi’s action shots from these events were spotted by author Shelena Harris while she was working on her latest book Every Cowboy Has A Story.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, Odi explained how he got involved and also revealed that the project is now much larger than Harris had first envisaged.

"It’s after growing legs and is in seven parts. The author started collecting stories about cowboys and cowgirls, rodeo clowns, bull fighters; basically anything to do with the whole rodeo scene.

"One of the rodeo bullfighters she did a story on, he told her about a photographer who got a few photographs of him and it was me. He sent on my photographs of him fighting bulls.

"Selena asked if I would contribute to it and all told about 25 or 30 of my photos have been included in the books."

Odi admits that he got a buzz out of seeing his photos in the collection.

"When you see your work in published books [it’s a good feeling] and the books are selling well. They are starting to sell really fast."

Cowboy culture is still very much alive in South Carolina and across the southern states of America.

It’s far from rodeos he was reared, but Odi is something of a cowboy himself these days too thanks to Lauren, who is an accomplished rider.

"We use horses for everything. We use our horses to round up horses. We have quite a few horses. If we are just going into the fields, where someone in Ireland would use a tractor or a quad to collect up cows, we actually use the horses.

"Obviously not as much as Lauren, but I get up quite a bit, as well. Lochlan [the couple’s almost three-year-old son] would get up with us as well. It’s great to see him with all his safety gear on; his little helmet and his little body armour. He loves being up on the horses."

Last year we spoke to Odi about a chat show he was doing on cable TV in his home town. While the chat show has been put on hiatus, he has been busying himself with a new podcast, MINDset on You.

He and a production company that he’s involved with are also in discussions with one of the largest streaming services in the world about a new series that if it is given the green light would be "a big one", Odi says.