An equestrian sports journalist remembers capturing horses on film – Marketplace

L.A. Berry, a writer based in Albany, New York, said she got into equestrian sports journalism because she “had no choice.”

She remembers setting up mock horse races around her bed as an 8- or 9-year-old and interviewing the winners on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. “I have just kept doing what I loved doing as a kid,” she said. 

When Berry began her career, she wore a fishing vest to carry film cartridges, horse show programs and all the other tools needed to cover equestrian sports at the time. “I carried a whole village on that vest,” she said. 

Back then, she had to be judicious with the number of shots she took. “If I was shooting a top horse and ride, I might plan for three frames,” she said. “And even then, you didn’t know if you’d gotten it right because there are things like horses blink.”

Contrast that with today, when photographers can hold their thumbs down on the shutters of digital cameras and take hundreds of frames. “What I see today in the digital indulgence is even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while,” Berry said. 

Berry said she also misses the human connection she felt with people working behind film counters in the age of 35-millimeter. “Especially if I counted on them for turning around film during a horse show season,” she said. “They were on my Christmas pierogi list at the end of the year.”

Click the audio player above to hear Berry’s story.

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