Documentary FRPS Panel - Simon Street FRPS

My local London racecourses were founded on serving a Victorian social hierarchy from ‘Punters’ to ‘Owning Classes’.

As a passionate people photographer, little had changed as my capture of the pageant of characters began in 2016.

My interest is in conveying a sense of the changing mix, behaviour and attire of those at work and play at my races. Sometimes in sun; sometimes stormy.

The panel provides a flavour of that shifting dynamic: the declining traditionalists; the growing modernists.

I hope the viewer can spot the shifting diversity and dress informality. The rise of so-called ‘exuberant behaviour’ also caught my eye. Three aspect ratios gave compositional flexibility in sometimes chaotic race scenes.

Welcome to the ‘New Victorian’ racing community!

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

FRPS Panel - Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

Simon Street FRPS

A hint of anger is an interesting starting point for a documentary project. In 2016, I attended a race meeting at my local racecourse. I am not a racing person. For me it was just a lazy opportunity to take pictures of people. I was amazed to find a 1950s social hierarchy at work – owners, premier enclosures, punters, stable people. Where was the inclusive, diverse world which is found elsewhere? I took plenty of images back then – and one or two I thought were strong. However, the idea was left on hold as I went through the gears of LRPS and ARPS where my interest in story telling matured a little.

Lockdown started. My narrative-based people photography had to stop. I looked around for a house project which became a fascination with macro images of broken glass. My first Fellowship followed in Visual Art.

Short breaks in lockdowns started but travel was restricted. The light bulb went on: how about building on my people at racecourses project. I have several racecourses within 5 miles of my house. This time I got permits to take photos and attended every meeting I could. For me, the most important consideration in a Fellowship project after interest in the content, is the ability to make repeated visits. I got to know the staff and jockeys well. I would talk for 20 minutes to many of them while shooting from the hip to provide an unobtrusive and distinctive style. The only subject I was not interested in was the racehorses.

My first panel draft was messy. It had one of every role in the race meetings but lacked a coherent focus. I had arranged a one2one review with Simon Leach. Simon saw the potential to tell a clearer story of how the mix of attendees had changed over the 5 years I had attended the race meetings. Bingo – thanks Simon! There was my documentary theme: change through time. I was able to find a few older images to start my story. The selection of later images began to fall into place. A few gaps needed filling and the Statement of Intent was torn up and re-written.

Looking back at the presentation layout, I confess there is still a hint of anger in there. Images 1, 8 and 15 all show what I thought were the ‘old school’. There were moments of great sadness – Image 2 of the jockeys awaiting a race was taken as they told me of their personal poverty and injuries resulting from their chosen career. There were moments of hope – I found several women jockeys winning major races – Image 11 in the centre was one. There were moments of humour where people’s attire just begged to be taken – Images 6 and 13 for example. Finally, there were moments of fear – Image 16 shows a group of drunk people.

But look closer at the group leader in the bottom right. His posture was very threatening, and he had clearly taken something stronger. That was the last image I took on the entire project. I left quickly still shaking.

My interest in people photography did not stop there. I have worked on other narrative-based Fellowships that you may enjoy on my website: www.simon-streetphotos.com. Perhaps I will come back and tell you next time about how one people project in a holiday resort resulted in a smashed camera by a paratrooper. But not today.

My technique for people photography:

I shoot with a Fuji XT4 with a 24-55mm F2.8 wide zoom. It has a deep depth of field so is forgiving for not having time to focus.

Shutter speeds are 1/500s. That is the minimum to freeze movement.

For my candid images I shoot from the hip. This has a terrible success rate and you are often shooting against a bright sky.

If and only if I know I will have a few seconds to grab a picture, I will shoot at 8 FPS.

I use DeepPRIME in PureRAW2 by DxO to clean-up grain.

Most of my processing is in Lightroom, but I cannot resist messing about in Photoshop to adjust each light zone of an image.

If a sky looks flat, I will use a lighter preset from EfexPro (most create halos and over-sharpen).