For many, Thanksgiving means the Three F’s: food, family, and football. To this, I add Fotography. And Fillies. And many Furlongs of graded stakes action.
Cigar Mile Day is generally the last hurrah of the season for New York racing fans. This time of year, the weather gets chilly, racing at Aqueduct moves to the inner dirt course, and the holidays approach.
I brought my friend Lisa to the track and she did a great job as my assistant. She also learned quite a bit about the light at the track and how to get the proper exposure for bright sun and the shade of the grandstand.
Before you know it, Derby Fever will be upon us. This Saturday gave racing fans a little more information about their favorite two-year-olds.
Lentenor, full brother of Barbaro. Barbaro’s Kentucky Derby was one of my favorite races of the decade, but I never got to see the great colt in person so it was a treat to see his younger brother carrying on the legacy.
But the day was not all about the colts. Stardom Bound had an eventful return from her layoff. Peach Brew stumbled out of the gate at the start of the Gazelle- if you view the video (below), you can see that it happened in the blink of an eye, but the photo shows how much it can affect a horse’s game.
In the few years that I’ve been shooting racing, I’ve heard several girls at the track say these words about themselves, “I’m going to be the next Barbara Livingston.” This comment is paradoxical: there is no heiress apparent to Barbara Livingston. If a young photographer wants to emulate Barbara Livingston, she must blaze her own trail, establish her own artistic voice, and be prepared to work harder than any other photographer at the track. Good luck with that ;^)
I first saw Barbara Livingston’s work when I was an embryonic racing fan, in my phase of gathering all the information I could about the sport. Her work is so rich- the eye repeatedly drifts over her images, finding new details and stories unfolding every time. I went to the track and hung on the rail, watching the photographers as much as I watched the horses. As I became entrenched in the world of racing and became a credentialed photographer myself, I learned that Barbara gets these images not by having the best camera or lens, but by being the hardest-working person in the industry. For every shot that everybody else gets while standing in a row like chumps, Livingston gets five angles and different exposures. When I’m at Saratoga shooting in the morning, I barely see her. I see everybody else in all the usual spots, but Barbara is off finding a bigger and better shot.
According to Barbara’s website, she studied the work of the people who shot such racing immortals as Man O’War and Citation: Skeets Meadors, Bert Clark Thayer, Allen Brewer, and C.C. Cook. She attended Syracuse University, graduating with a degree in Experimental Photography, and her work can be seen in top publications everywhere, racing and otherwise. Livingston has twice received the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Photography, the most prestigious award in American racing. She penned four books, all illustrated with her photographs.
In a nutshell, that’s Barbara Livingston The Photographer. Do you want to know another reason why nobody can be the next Barbara Livingston? She was (briefly) in a band (see photo above). In my convoluted quest to find the cosmic link between rock and racehorses, I asked Barbara Livingston to provide her list of the Top Ten Albums of All Time. Without further ado, here it is:
2.) Ben Folds – Rockin’ the Suburbs. I’m an old person – a sap for songs like ‘Fred Jones, Pt. 2’ and ‘Annie Waits.’ I love musical genius, and great pianists, and Folds fits the bill. He sings, sings backup, plays the piano, and guitar, and drums, and bass guitar – and writes great lyrics to boot.
6.) R.E.M. –The Best of R.E.M. I LOVE everything about R.E.M., including that Youtube video where Michael Stipe admits Peter Buck and Mike Mills are straight. That’s reason enough to vote R.E.M. in, but I did it for the music.
7.) The Best of Morrissey. Morrissey is as uplifting as I often feel. It was on the Throgs Neck Bridge where I first heard his unbelievable voice, some time in the mid- to late ’80s (‘How Soon Is Now’). Been a fan since.
8.) Jesus Christ Superstar. Nearly everything this Unitarian knows about the Bible is based upon Jesus Christ Superstar. Really. It was surprising to learn King Herod was so effeminate, for instance – but if Andrew Lloyd Webber says so it must be true.
9.) Supertramp – Crime of the Century. I was a teen when this came out, with a best friend whom I adored. We played this album over and over…and over. And over. The melodrama of ‘If Everyone was Listening’ and ‘Crime of the Century’ really touched our teen minds. My best friend died of AIDS many years ago, so this album reminds me of him.
I was very pleased and honored to have three photos enter the final round of voting. Congratulations to Cindy Pearson Dulay for her winning photo.
Here’s the story behind my photo of Casino Drive and the Anna House kids:
Anna House is run by the Belmont Child Care Association and is an on-site child care center for backstretch workers at Belmont Park. When blue-blooded Japanese invader Casino Drive was at Belmont Park preparing to run in the 2008 Belmont Stakes, the children visited his barn. They prepared a good luck song and sang it for him. He watched the children with great interest. Unfortunately, Casino Drive suffered from a foot bruise the day of the Belmont Stakes and did not race. But it was an unforgettable moment in racing in 2008.
Rock and Racehorses: Sarah K. Andrew 