NEVER MIND THE HORSES - 30 Years of Photographing UK Racegoers

A day at the races is a people watching paradise that I’ve been drawn to several times a year at various racecourses around the country for 30 years. Ever since I first picked up a camera in anger in 1986, my main concern has been to photograph the world as it really is - taking pictures of people behaving naturally and unaffected by me pointing a camera at them. In most everyday situations, it is difficult to take pictures of people in an unobtrusive, candid way. People are generally suspicious of what you’re up to. At the races, most people don’t care. They have plenty of things to keep them occupied and to distract them while I flit around amongst them trying to capture facial expressions, emotions, funny situations and so on with my camera - they’re checking the latest odds, the condition of the horse they backed, the race to the line, the queue at the bar, the state of her (or him) in that dress over there. There’s a lot of flirting, gossiping, bragging, shouting and eating going on too. Like the people I photograph, I’m a paying punter but I couldn’t tell you much about the racing. Too many distractions!