For Photographer Rob Carr, There is Nothing Like the Kentucky Derby

Rob Carr wasn't where he normally is on the first Saturday in May. The East Coast Chief Sports Photographer for Getty Images, Carr spent the day at home in Baltimore, but the

GI Kentucky Derby was foremost on his mind.

“It will be really, really strange not to be at Churchill this year,” Carr said earlier this week. “Somebody put something on Facebook which I thought was a pretty good idea. Figure out what time is post time, something like 6:36, and go outside and raise a toast to the Derby. I'm going to do that. I'm going to get a glass of Four Roses bourbon, put two ice cubes in it, go outside at post time, look up at the sky and have a toast.”

For some, covering the Derby can be more work than pleasure, but that's not the case for Carr. Unlike photographers that specialize in horse racing, he normally shoots only the Triple Crown races and the Breeders' Cup. To him, when he arrives at the racetrack, everything is fresh. It's not that way when he works at a baseball game in September, which could be his 50th game of the season.

“The people who cover racing every day have a different perspective on it than people like me who cover three, maybe four races a year,” he said. “It's a beautiful sport. I do baseball, football, basketball, golf on a regular basis. Horse racing is something I do a couple of times a year, so it is fresh in your mind every time you are there. You are always looking for something different, always looking for something unique because it's not something your audience sees on a regular basis. In a Thoroughbred publication, people are used to seeing it all the time. When I go to a race everything is new and everything is fresh.”

Carr is entrusted at the Derby to get the standard shots–the horses crossing the wire, the scene from the winner's circle. But that's not the most challenging part of working at the Kentucky Derby. He takes it upon himself every year to come away with that special and unique picture that you can only get at what is one of sport's most colorful events.

“You are always looking for something different, always looking for something unique,” Carr said. “This is not something your audience sees on a regular basis. When I go to it everything is new and everything is fresh. That's the great thing about the Derby. From a photographic standpoint you are seeing things you don't see every day. At the Derby, you have the hats ,the people, the mint juleps, all the color. There's so much there it is like shooting fish in a barrel. The Derby is so picturesque, myself and the guys at Getty, we challenge ourselves. What can we do this year that we haven't done before?”

He may not spend much time at the racetrack theses days, but Carr grew up in a racing family. His father worked at horse farms in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee and Carr often accompanied him to Turfway Park and River Downs. He was a journalism major at Eastern Kentucky University.

“When I was in college, the Derby was the thing that every kid with a camera wanted to do,” he said.

Carr covered the Derby for the first time in 1986, working for the Blood-Horse. Since, he has worked at the Derby for a number of different outlets over the years. He's been with Getty Images for 10 years. Along the way, Carr admired the work of a number of photographers who specialized in racing and made it a point to try to learn from them.

“I remember my dad telling stories about Tony Leonard coming out to their farm to shoot conformation pictures of stallions,” Carr said. “I saw his work in different publications and he was a real inspiration. Another one is Skip Dickstein. Skip hired me back in 1989 to help him with the Jim Beam at Turfway Park. I learned a lot from Skip, watching him set up remote cameras at the Derby. He hired me a couple of times to work with him. Then there were the legendary guys from Sports Illustrated, guys who were pioneers like Heinz Kluetmeier, who shot the Derby from every possible angle you can do and made some tremendous pictures from it.”

As someone who grew up in a racing family and appreciates the beauty of the horse, his favorite horses tend to be those who look the part. Though Point Given was beaten in the 2001 Kentucky Derby, he went on to win the GI Preakness and the GI Belmont. Carr was enamored with a horse he says was the perfect equine specimen.

“Point Given was the most beast mode horse I ever saw in my life,” he said. “Unfortunately, he got boxed in in the Derby. Good God, that was one good looking, strong horse. He was so  impressive. Man, he was a big boy.”

So far as the highlight of his career shooting racing, he said watching American Pharoah finally break the Triple Crown drought in 2015 is something he will always remember.

Though he always looks forward to his time in Louisville, Carr said shooting the Derby has never been harder.

“The changes to Churchill Downs itself have been a big thing,” Carr said. “They've done two things that have changed the look from a photographic standpoint and that's adding on to the grandstand and adding lights which, from a photographer's standpoint, is just atrocious. Another problem is that they pushed the post time back. Now, if it is a sunny day the horses finish in the shadows. In the eighties and nineties they finished in beautiful light. You had the iconic Twin Spires in the background. Now it's in shadows and you have the iconic twin spires with the new grandstand and light poles. If you look at photos from the seventies, eighties and early nineties, they're so clean, so nice. And now the horses finish in shadows at 6:40 p.m. and it's tough. That shadow comes right across the finish line but yet the grandstand is still in sunlight. That's a challenge for the cameras under the rail.”

But he's not complaining. There may be new challenges to shooting a Kentucky Derby held in the late summer, but Carr will figure it out.  On the first Saturday in September, there's no place he'd rather be than Churchill Downs.