Over the years Part I. Mr James Bartholomew Cummings

Every now and again I have to go hunting back through my image library for a particular image, and every time I do so, I am struck by the process of ageing.  I always tell myself, as I apply the inevitable changes take place to bodies and faces that ageing is far preferable to the alternative!

So I thought over time I would share some of the changes I have witnessed through the lens in the years I have been photographing on the Australian Turf.

I like photographing people.  But my style has, and always will be, to operate almost stealthily in the background, lurking from afar with a big lens.  It's the way I prefer to operate, mostly because I have an intense discomfort with being instrusive (and also getting ticked off).  But it also serves as a way of getting the best images.  They are generally the most spontaneous.  The ones that display raw emotion and thoughts, rather than the staged 'give it a kiss' image, which I don't enjoy taking.

This series begins with arguably the most influential trainer in the history of the Australian Turf.  Mr James Bartholomew Cummings, who's image I've had the privilege of recording between the early 1990s until the present day.  I threw in a couple of images here of Dato Tan, who now appears on track in a wheelchair.  It doesn't seem that long ago that he was leading Saintly in after the 1997 CF Orr Stakes.  It's only 13 years after all, but sometimes, 13 years can be a long time.  Mr Cummings has been unwell this year, and has lost a lot of weight.  I am hopeful that he will regain his prior robust look, as I am unable to contemplate a life on track without his presence.

There are two words that I use to describe the atmosphere when Mr Cummings wins a big race.  MEDIA SCRUM!  Take a moment to look in the reflection of the Cox Plate from So You Think's victory this year.  What do you see in it?  I rest my case!  I despise it, and pine for the old days, when, as you see from the wonderful - if I do say so myself - image of Mr Cummings, Darren Beadman and Saintly after the 1996 Cox Plate, it was far more civilised.  In those days, there was a respectful group of photographers that stood in an organised semi circle, all sporting an 80-200mm lens, which meant two things:
  1. That we all managed to get a shot, because no one was being greedy by getting too close with a wide angle lens, and
  2. The images were better, because we weren't all 50 cms from the noses of the subject (or victim!), which has the result - particularly with a horse - of distorting all features and pulling faces out of shape.
 
  
 
 
 
 




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