This month I am fortunate enough to have a public exhibition at the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library in Clifton Park, NY, as part of Saratoga Arts’ Art in Public Places program. As per Saratoga Arts, the goal of this program “is to present artwork in publicly accessible spaces and give artists at all points in their artistic careers an opportunity to show and sell their work.” This is my first solo exhibition, and I am so excited to share my photography with my local community.
I chose ten photos to exhibit, five of them equine portraits and five of them photos of the Saratoga Springs, NY area. I will be donating my profit from the sale of the equine portraits to Old Friends at Cabin Creek in Greenfield, NY where I volunteer. In this post, I will share the story behind each photo and also provide a link to purchase the signed print through Saratoga Arts.
I actually took this photo of Naughty New Yorker with my iPhone 13 Pro. It was a beautiful fall day at Old Friends at Cabin Creek and I had given tours of the farm earlier in the day. Before heading home, I decided to take a few photos while the light was pretty. That tree always looks so beautiful in fall. Naughty New Yorker, or Vito as we call him, was standing quietly and formed a beautiful silhouette in the late afternoon. Vito, foaled in 2002, is the newest resident of Cabin Creek, having joined us in March of 2021. He is our only stallion and occupies the former paddock of the late Travers Stakes and Whitney Handicap winner Will’s Way. Vito won over $1 million at the track, having earned the New York-bred Horse of the Year designation in 2007, and before coming to us stood at stud in Ontario.
This photo has always been one of my favorites. My friend Barb and I had spent the evening walking around downtown Saratoga with our cameras and we ended up in Congress Park. It was a beautiful spring evening and I set up my tripod to take a photo of this famed tree positioned precariously on the bank of the creek, which sadly has since had to be cut down for safety reasons. My 16-35mm lens created beautiful sunstars of the lights.
This photo was taken on one of those evenings right after a fresh snowfall where everything just looked magical. I decided Saratoga Spa State Park was the perfect place to capture that magic. The smaller tree in the front really caught my attention. Really, this photo could be anywhere, but it’s special to me because I love to think a scene this beautiful could occur in my hometown.
I took this photo during my first summer as a tour guide at Old Friends at Cabin Creek. It was a special day, as we were honoring Travers Stakes winner Will’s Way (who sadly has since passed), and all the volunteers gathered for a photo with Will. After the photo, I wandered around the farm and took photos of the horses. Mr. Cowboy peeked out of his run-in shed for this one. Cowboy has a special connection to Cabin Creek. He was foaled at the farm in 2009, and when he was born wasn’t breathing. Owner JoAnn Pepper gave him mouth-to-nose resuscitation but then he didn’t walk for three days. Despite his precarious beginnings, Cowboy went on to race, and won one race in his hometown of Saratoga with jockey Ramón Domínguez up. Upon retirement, he came full circle to live out his years at the very farm where he was foaled.
My friend Barb and I went to the Saratoga County Fair in Ballston Spa back in 2014. I didn’t have a tripod with me, so I just experimented with shutter speeds that I could hand hold. There was a lot of movement and motion at the fair that was fun to capture. This is one of those situations where you hold down the shutter and shoot a series of shots in burst mode and hope at least one of them came out sharp. Thankfully, this one did.
In 2015 I chartered a helicopter to fly over Saratoga. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life, but of all the shots this one has always been my favorite. Getting to see my hometown from a fresh new perspective was a memorable experience. Most people these days get their aerial shots from a drone, but actually getting up in the air and seeing the view for yourself is so much more fun!
Back in January I went to Cabin Creek for a visit with “the boys.” It was a beautiful winter day with a light snowfall. I’ve always loved Smokey’s eyes, and the diffused light from the overcast sky made the perfect conditions for this dramatic photo. Smokey, foaled in 2000, is an Oklahoma-bred who earned a respectable half a million at the track. He suffered a serious injury in his last race (but still managed to come in third) but was rehabilitated thanks to the support of the Oklahoma Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and eventually retired to his forever home at Cabin Creek. His pal and paddock mate is our one Ontario-bred Cool N Collective.
This was my first winter photo shoot at Cabin Creek. I’ve always loved this photo because it can be pretty tricky to nail the focus when a horse, or any other creature, is running fast. I love the snow on Leo’s muzzle too. Leo, whose racing name is Roaring Lion, was foaled in 2004 and owned by entrepreneur Mike Repole during his racing days. Trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, he came to the farm in 2011 and is often the first horse visitors meet on their tour of the farm.
This is one of my all time favorite photos of Red and Zippy. They are best friends whose paddock I had the pleasure of mucking with fellow volunteer Cathy on Tuesday mornings last summer. Zippy, foaled in 1991, celebrated a milestone 30th birthday last year with a blowout bash at the farm, complete with birthday cards written to him by an elementary class. Zippy’s appeal as a racehorse is a bit unorthodox, as he actually managed to win 0 of 100 starts. No other horse at the farm has even had that many starts! People love Zippy because he’s the underdog. He’s had two books written about him and has even appeared in People magazine. Last fall he was the first equine honoree of Saratoga Living Magazine’s Capital Region Gives Back awards, as a thoroughbred aftercare advocate. But let’s not forget Red! Red, foaled in 2000, was a turf racer, with 2 wins out of 32 starts and career earnings of just over $100,000. I loved this photo of these two inseparable pals so much I made an illustration of it which I have framed in my living room.
In September of 2019 I took a hot air balloon ride over Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties. The experience was really neat, but the coolest part was seeing another balloon in the air, which made for a unique composition. What I learned about hot air balloon rides is that they are very weather-dependent. The conditions have to be just right, or you can’t go up. There was a lot of waiting and postponing, but in the end it was worth it. In this particular shot, you see Glens Falls in the background.
Be sure to click here and read my artist statement and browse the photos on Saratoga Arts’ website.
To see more of my Saratoga area photography be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook. All photos in this post © Samantha Decker and may not be reused without permission.
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Very interesting and impressive!