A small window…

… of opportunity that is. I am talking about covering Kentucky Derby workouts at Churchill Downs. Photographer David Stephenson and I get to Churchill Downs every morning around 6:00-6:30. At that time of the morning it is still too dark to shoot. Especially when it is raining and lightning like it was today. When it is finally bright enough to shoot, and by that I mean high ISO’s and slow shutter speeds, the stress begins of trying to make sure no Derby horses worked out before it was possible to get a shot. If a horse did sneak by, we try to get to the barn the horse is in hoping to get it still being walked, or possibly getting a bath. Bathing shots can be cool when the light is right because as soon as they throw some water on the horse it steams up a lot and can be a cool photo.

What happens is, we wait for light. Any light, and when it comes we shoot everything we can before the track closes and workouts end. When workouts end we go to the barns where some of the trainers hold press conferences and others sometimes have their horses grazing which gives us another opportunity for a shot. The fear is to not get a horse working on that day and have the editors call and ask if you got a shot of that particular horse. The daily goal is we try to get them all. The reality is, they don’t all go to the track everyday!

Sometimes you see a moment coming and there is just no way to think about getting the exposure you really need, or want to shoot at. This was the case when trainer Dan Hendricks pulled a carrot out of his office and started toward Brother Derek inside the barn. As I saw it, they were all silhouettes with a very bright background, and as he went to feed the horse the carrot I continued to shoot the silhouetted image while still turning down the shutter speed desperately trying to expose for the shadows. As the moment ended I looked at my camera and new I had come close.

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