THE DAY SARAH K. ANDREW MADE ME A STAR

We should all be so lucky to have the feeling I got.

Like most days that change your life — in ways big and small — June 27, 2009 started out quietly. I wasn't even planning on going to the track, I was gonna go on Sunday. But your own plans, and the plans of what we call fate — well, I saw what happened when I let the soft embrace of my fate take me to a place I could not imagine.

The world of the New York City racetracks is not large, it is quite small actually, but make no mistake, it is a world that has it's own rules and structure — just like a city. Going to Belmont racetrack for the first time was just like going to New York City itself for the first time.

I was nobody.

It was a whole world of people I didn't know and things I hadn't seen, and I came with the same exact ambitions and love and fear and an overwhelming desire to be seen and heard above the

big noisy microcosm. And I FELT like it was going to happen, I just felt it, but feeling something like that when you have no idea why and no idea how — that is humbling. Because it's weird and strong and a mystery and it is up to you to make the moves.

Just like in a horse race. Exactly like in a horse race. You have the horse you've got and you are the jockey, and there are alot of jocks next to you, all seemingly wanting the same thing. I didn't even realize what kind of jockey I was till a year or two later when I started calling myself lensjockey.

Sarah K. Andrew is a lensjockey too.

That's the beautiful talented Sarah K. at Aqueduct racetrack in Jamaica, Queens.

She has a fascinating blog, and very cool ideas — here is a sample — it's about me, and my top ten music faves — but who ever thought of asking track photographers what their top ten faves would be? Only someone who goes by the name Rock and Racehorses. Only.

http://tinyurl.com/kk567k

if you have not seen Sarah's view of the racetracks, you haven't seen the racetracks. You just haven't. Like all great lensjockeys, her view is irreplaceable. I think myself that to have a rock approach to shooting horses, jockeys and races is the best approach there is. It is the only way to inject style and modern action into such a traditional and relatively untouched environment.

When I came to the tracks with my desires and ambitions and my style and my view, one of the few who got me, and I think she got me really fast, lengths and lengths before others, lengths, lets say the lengths are years... the one who really sees me, is Sarah K. Andrew. And the picture she took of me last weekend, mere days ago, was a picture that I have been waiting for in the back of my mind, never knowing what it would look like or when it would happen, or by whos hand it would come.

yeah, I know it's a picture of me, but I see it as more than that. it is a picture of a photographer at a NYC track and it is a rock photo. It rocks. It's Pete Townsend, it's Jon Bon Jovi,

it's rock and roll, and it's at the racetracks and it's a photographer holding a remote for a camera to shoot a race. The picture she took of me is the first of it's kind at the tracks. it's the best illustration I have seen yet of a photographer as rockstar, there might be others out there of course, but this was a pure and direct result of two different people. I can't post bigger images of hers to this blog right now as I write because she doesn't allow the access to her pictures on flickr that I would need, but she's got shots!

That little black and white shot of me at the top of this post, she took during a moment that just happened, it was kindof a joke really. But it turned into something more. In a small quiet way, she turned me into a star.

Check out her blog, check out her pictures. Remember her name.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/

ROCK AND RACEHORSES.

thanks Sarah, that was a little personal fantasy of mine you made come true. hahah