Photography and the Thoroughbred Industry

Attracting new staff to work in the thoroughbred industry is often a topic of concern for our industry, and the COVID-19 Pandemic has done much to accentuate the problems in Australia while our international border remains shut.  From a personal point of view I often worry about the capacity to attract future equine photographers to the industry and wonder who will replace some of the people like myself who's been doing it for a little while now.  

Whilst I can take presently take an upcoming photographer to a stud farm and teach them things away from the hustle and bustle of the racetrack, the only place they will obtain the necessary skills for photographing race meetings and to hone their instincts and reflexes and teach them the ability to think quickly and react to situations unfolding in front of them, is at the racetrack itself.  But there are so many impediments to getting access to the track, and more critically, in photographers having the ability to successfully commercialise their work.  Yet I've lost count of the number of times I've been approached by organisations and people wanting to pay to use my work and I've had to say "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to sell it to you" which for any organisation is hard. 

Racetrack and equine photography requires a different set of skills to other photography.  Photographing horses requires patience, skill, and appreciation for the industry and for bloodlines and for correctness.  It also requires a knowledge of what works, what doesn't and as with many things, if an image makes the subject look ordinary I don't care how clever you think you are, it's still a bad image and the only action is to press the delete key.  Racetrack photography requires instinct, knowledge and a certain amount of what I call "corporate" historical knowledge.  It requires you to be able to think on your feet and to be able to adapt when you can't control a situation and or direct the horse like you can when working with them one on one during a controlled shoot.  It also requires you to be brave, to trust your instincts and to back yourself to make the right call and not miss the winner in a situation where the complexion of a race can change in the blink of an eye.

It is my opinion that image selection is highly personal and different photographers see and therefore depict the same scene differently because we all have different 'eyes'.  Also not all people will like the same image.  If you are only able to select images from a single perhaps 'official' source they are not going be able to economically produce every single image that the industry will need or that everyone will like. It is important to preserve and protect the size and diversity of the image pool.  I don't believe that a single source of images is the way to go because it does just that - it reduces the scope of the available image pool.

Competition is important to the preservation of excellence but I worry that the available pool of photographers who specialise in working with horses continues to shrink.  Today's world is image hungry yet many organisations and businesses are either laying photographers off or they are trying to obtain their work for free.  I've lost count of the times I am approached by organisations or individuals who expect me to respond positively to their cheerful offer of using my work for free in return for saying I took the photo.  My reply is mostly a curt 'no' - that's if I have the energy to respond at all.  

I am reminded photographers are just subcontractors. The handful of us who are engaged 'full time' in the industry (by that I mean those who derive 100% of their incomes from their photography and aren't working full time in another job - essentially there for fun and because they like racing) are sole traders.  As such we aren't covered by any form of worker's compensation, leave entitlements, or work stability, mentoring programs, we don't appear to be eligible to be included any of the industry schemes or awards and we sort of 'float' around the edge of the industry.  It's not uncommon to feel downward pressure on what acceptable daily rates are.  This can be made worse by newcomers thinking it's wise to charge prices that are way under what most working professional professionals would agree is a reasonable daily rate and/or give away their work for free, because this doesn't benefit any of us.  

Photographers work long hours.  Overheads like cars to drive around in (and we spend a lot of time in our cars travelling to and from jobs and the travel time is frequently 'unpaid') and said cars annoyingly need replacing.  There always seems to be a new camera or lens that you might need, or perhaps you might drop one, or bump it and have pay for it to go off to the doctor.  iCloud data, memory cards, hard drives (always more and more and more!), website storage and upkeep, insurance, tax, home office, travel expenses, etc, etc, etc.  When my kids were younger it used to cost me between $150-200 a day to mind my kids and because I frequently needed them minded on a weekend or early in the morning (like - 4am early) or late in the evening (as late as midnight if I was flying in from somewhere) it always meant I was ineligible for any Child Care Benefit or Child Care Rebates because the people who I did manage to find to mind the kids weren't 'registered' child care providers and for the time I was a single parent that was pretty tough.  I make the point about child care because it tends to affect woman disproportionately to men.  

If one of my children wanted to follow me in my chosen career path it's a shame to say that, as things stand, my firm advice would be don't even think about it.  While they will one day inherit my photo library (I hope they manage it well and that the images will not be lost forever because collections go it is not bad) yet I can say with almost complete certainty that they have no interest in working within the industry.

 Dundeel.  I love horses and I love photographing them.

The might champion FRANKEL.  June 2017. 
One of my peers on our return said "but you got to photograph FRANKEL......"

Taken the day after Winx's 3rd Cox Plate victory emulating my Black Horse. 
I stopped by his gate to tell him it was ok after being with her that morning at the beach.

Kingston Town and Bronwen in 1986.