Monday, January 23, 2006

Horse Races

I put up a new portfolio category called 'Current Projects', which will hold whatever my latest photographs are from any projects I'm working on. I've already put up some photos from some horse-races I attended on the weekend. As time goes by I'll keep changing the content with whatever I'm currently working on.

I spent Sunday afternoon at the local horse race track here in Toronto - the Woodbine Racetrack. I went as part of a group of photographers called the Ontario Photo Collective, which is a club started off by a bunch of people who used to be regulars on Nikonians, which is a popular website for Nikon users. Anyways, they're a great bunch of guys and we really have fun together. John managed to get us press passes for the race track, which got us close access to the track and stables. It was pretty cold - about -2 degrees celsius, and we were out on the track shooting for 3-4 hours. It was worth it at the end as we all got some great shots. Standing in the cold trying to photography 15 stampeding horses can be pretty scary and challenging. My mind was racing just as much the horses were trying to decide which lenses to use, what kind of shots I wanted, and from which angles. Definitely a learning experience!

My aim was to capture the action, the power, and the raw speed I saw and felt out there in between brief moments of calm (where riders prepared for the next heat), rather than trying to freeze the movements in time. You can take a look at the gallery here or click on portfolios->'Current Project'. Feel free to drop some comments, and remember you don't need to login/have an account to reply on this blog.