John Wyatt: Racing Photographer
Dec 7, 2013 23:26:00 GMT -5
Post by Evelyn on Dec 7, 2013 23:26:00 GMT -5
Photographs and history: Photographer John C. Wyatt
By Barbara Livingston
DRF
Modern horse racing is quickly losing its permanent photographic record.
In "the old days," the great photographer Tony Leonard would have been called to photograph a big-league foaling or the arrival at stud of a topnotch stallion. He turned conformation photography into a fine art. Yet nowadays, such events are usually recorded by amateurs with cell-phone cameras. Many top farms don’t use good photos in advertising anymore, and the days when top "outside" photographers aimed their cameras at our sport are long-gone.
Some yesteryear racing photographers’ negative collections have ended up at the Keeneland Library, where they are permanently stored, catalogued, and treated as treasures. Yet fifty years from now, people looking for some of the most important images of our time may simply find red Xs on long-defunct websites – if the internet still exists, with its memories of items posted decades before.
In those earlier days, of film, and topnotch professional photographers, and attention to detail, Mr. John C. Wyatt was one of the sport's best.
In fact, John C. Wyatt’s photographic work is one of racing’s most precious secrets.
It’s not as if Mr. Wyatt was unknown. His photos appeared for 40 years in Lexington, KY, newspapers, and he also photographed horse racing - including Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Kentucky farms - for three decades. He assisted the world-famous photographer J. C. "Skeets" Meadors, and he helped tend to the Keeneland Library.
But Mr. Wyatt, who died in 2005, was humble, quiet, understated, not even asking for a credit line. His work was never about “him" nor did he want it to be. It was about the image. Facebook, selfies and photo-bombing would, I’d guess, have made him cringe.
He was an artist and perfectionist, and that he loved what he did is reflected in his work. But, because he stayed far from the limelight, his name is known only to the most ardent racing fans.
Yet from photos of long-legged foals who grew up to be Hatchet Man or Buckaroo, to the Preakness winner Greek Money being visited by baseball star Don Drysdale, to a young and happy Buckpasser galloping across his Claiborne Farm paddock, John C. Wyatt recorded times and events the rest of us dream about. He preserved our history, and we are the richer for his life's work.
Go here to see great photos:
www.drf.com/blogs/photographs-and-history-photographer-john-c-wyatt
By Barbara Livingston
DRF
Modern horse racing is quickly losing its permanent photographic record.
In "the old days," the great photographer Tony Leonard would have been called to photograph a big-league foaling or the arrival at stud of a topnotch stallion. He turned conformation photography into a fine art. Yet nowadays, such events are usually recorded by amateurs with cell-phone cameras. Many top farms don’t use good photos in advertising anymore, and the days when top "outside" photographers aimed their cameras at our sport are long-gone.
Some yesteryear racing photographers’ negative collections have ended up at the Keeneland Library, where they are permanently stored, catalogued, and treated as treasures. Yet fifty years from now, people looking for some of the most important images of our time may simply find red Xs on long-defunct websites – if the internet still exists, with its memories of items posted decades before.
In those earlier days, of film, and topnotch professional photographers, and attention to detail, Mr. John C. Wyatt was one of the sport's best.
In fact, John C. Wyatt’s photographic work is one of racing’s most precious secrets.
It’s not as if Mr. Wyatt was unknown. His photos appeared for 40 years in Lexington, KY, newspapers, and he also photographed horse racing - including Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Kentucky farms - for three decades. He assisted the world-famous photographer J. C. "Skeets" Meadors, and he helped tend to the Keeneland Library.
But Mr. Wyatt, who died in 2005, was humble, quiet, understated, not even asking for a credit line. His work was never about “him" nor did he want it to be. It was about the image. Facebook, selfies and photo-bombing would, I’d guess, have made him cringe.
He was an artist and perfectionist, and that he loved what he did is reflected in his work. But, because he stayed far from the limelight, his name is known only to the most ardent racing fans.
Yet from photos of long-legged foals who grew up to be Hatchet Man or Buckaroo, to the Preakness winner Greek Money being visited by baseball star Don Drysdale, to a young and happy Buckpasser galloping across his Claiborne Farm paddock, John C. Wyatt recorded times and events the rest of us dream about. He preserved our history, and we are the richer for his life's work.
Go here to see great photos:
www.drf.com/blogs/photographs-and-history-photographer-john-c-wyatt