“I was luckier with the camera than riding over it”
Richard Dunwoody Equine & Travel Photographer
He was one of the UK’S most successful jockeys, but a career cut short by injury forced Richard Dunwoody to find another course. Thankfully, his childhood interest in photography took on greater importance, as Keith Wilson finds out…
Even before he started school, Richard Dunwoody knew he’d be a jockey. His father and maternal grandfather were both celebrated trainers and riders, so it seemed obvious that the boy, Richard, would saddle up. But how many would have bet he’d go on to become Britain’s champion jockey three years in a row?
In a career spanning 16 years, Richard rode nearly 1900 winners, including two Grand Nationals, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the King George VI Chase four times – twice on the legendary grey, Desert Orchid. There would have been more winners if it wasn’t for his career being cut short by a neck injury in 1999, so Richard had to search for another ride. Now a pro photographer specializing in travel and equestrian events, horses continue to feature prominently in many of his pictures, whether by design or some serendipitous moments…
Horses keep cropping up in many different ways in your pictures. Is that deliberate or are you just instinctively drawn to horses?
It’s just the way things have worked out. I did some work for the Brooke Hospital for Animals, which is an equine charity, so that was one of my first contracts after I went to the Spéos Institute in Paris and studied photojournalism there for a year. The Brooke came along and then I did some work for Gallop magazine, which obviously is all equine as well. Yes, I enjoy taking photos of horses, but if I feel I’ve got a half decent image somewhere it doesn’t have to be of a horse! It’s not essential to be photographing horses.
When you were growing up around horses and training as a jockey, was photography also an interest? It was an interest at school. They had a darkroom where we printed our own black-and-white photos. This was in Belfast?
No, this was after we moved over. I was born in Belfast, we moved to Gloucestershire when I was eight and then I went to school near Cheltenham at a place called Rendcomb College. They had a darkroom there, so I was using it until I left school. I had an old Praktica, but even then I’d go racing. I also remember going to Fakenham races up in Norfolk, taking some pictures up there and then printing them when I got back to school. It was just a bit of a hobby then.
What about during your time as a professional racer?
My ex-wife, Carol, was a professional racing photographer before we split
I love travelling. My career as a photographer has come about from my love of travelling
up. Jockeys always have quite good banter with the photographers. They’re always down there when we show the horses at the fence – photographers like Ed Byrne, who I think was one of the best photographers, especially during the ’70s and ’80s. Then Ed Whitaker came along, who’s now with the Racing Post – Ed’s a magical photographer. I used to love getting his yearbook of his best racing photos of the year. Photography has always been there, rubbing alongside the career.
When you retired early because of injury, did photography seem like a natural thing to give more time to? Not at all. I first started a sports
marketing business, but didn’t choose my business partners very well, so that went by the way after a couple of years, but I have no regrets – It was good experience. I then met Jonny Bealby from a company called Wild Frontiers in 2002 and started leading trips for him. Alongside that I was doing the odd expedition.
The odd expedition? I noticed they were in the Arctic and Antarctica! Yeah, we did a couple of expeditions to the Arctic, one to the magnetic North Pole, that was with David Hempleman-adams. Then we got this South Pole expedition set up. That took two or three years to get together, but I managed to get down there in 2007-08, and still led some trips with Jonny to some great places in Central Asia, incredibly beautiful and very remote places, including Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. We even went to the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan, but I kept coming back with rubbish photos! Then I bought a Nikon D70 after seeing an advert for it in my local café in Fulham, and thought I might come back with slightly better images.
Was that your first digital camera? The D70 was my first DSLR and I’ve stuck with Nikon ever since. Soon after I got my first Nikon, I saw a friend’s post on Facebook saying that she was studying photography at Spéos Photographic Institute in Paris; that was what persuaded me to get in touch with them in back January 2011. By the end of that month I had signed up for a year’s course in 2011-2012.
It sounds like that was a big step in contributing to where you are now in your career as a photographer? Definitely. If I was going to do anything, I needed to do it properly and it needed to be done exceptionally well. What sort of photography were they teaching you?
The first term from September was lighting and general photography. Then they specialized to photojournalism from January 2012 for another five months. We each had our own projects. I ended up going to the racecourse at Auteuil quite a bit and I was sending back images to Racingfotos, a horse racing agency, while I was doing it, so that was all good experience.
We were also shooting protests in Paris, of which there were always plenty! I think this year’s intake will have some cracking photos of the gilets jaunes protestors in Paris, but we had the presidential elections in our year, which was also interesting.
What type of photographer do you describe yourself as now?
I’d like to do more corporate photography. I’ve done various bits and pieces for charities, also two or three vets I’ve been photographing, including Noel Fitzpatrick, the Irish veterinary surgeon, so that’s all been good experience. Myself and my girlfriend, Olivia, have started a small website creation business called Mirame Marketing, so I can do the photography for that and Olivia
I think the 24-70mm f/2.8 is the classic lens for me. You’ll nail the shot with that one and then look at using your wide-angle or 70200mm as well
will do the website. I’d like to keep pushing that. I’ve been talking to Gallop magazine recently, so we might have a couple of things coming up, like travel shooting in strange places. I’ve worked on the Mongol Derby as well. Again equine!
But that’s the great thing about horses, they’re universal, so it’s a subject that can take you anywhere in the world.
Certainly! I’d love to go to India where one of the World Press Photo winners photographed the kids doing the races. It can take you anywhere. Do you miss it at all?
Obviously, racing was very good to me – it’s the same with a rugby player or footballer, we get to 35-ish and some of us don’t make it. Rugby lads are lucky if they make it to 30, so you always have to try to prepare for something else. Initially, that was the sports marketing business, then it evolved. I wouldn’t change it. I’ve been very lucky since racing with the people I’ve met and the things I’ve ended up doing. I love travelling. My career as a photographer has come from my love of travelling.
Speaking of travelling, what camera gear does Richard Dunwoody pack? At least two bodies, the D4 and D4S. For the Mongol Derby I’d take the D810 as well and then the range of f/2.8 lenses: 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm. I’ve got a 200-400mm lens, but for the Mongol Derby I depended on those three lenses. We were sending images back by satellite. If I didn’t have that sort of pressure at the end of the day, every day, I might have taken my 200-400mm, but I left it behind to keep things as simple as possible and to make sure you’ve got some half decent images back to base, edited and captioned.
The Mongol Derby sounds far removed from Epsom, so what is the big attraction?
I’ve covered it four times and I might get the chance to cover it again some day. I love Mongolia. Talk about wide open spaces. It’s a very beautiful country, quite diverse in the countryside – you can go down an alpine valley and then the next thing you know you’re on a wide open plain, the steppes. There’s a belt of dunes that run through the country as well. Ulan Bator isn’t the nicest capital in the world, but once you’re outside of that city it is really a beautiful country. The herders on the steppe have been very helpful. They provide the horses for the race, they provide all the food and we sleep in the yurts with them as well. It takes a hell of a lot of organizing but thanks to the locals it all comes together.
It’s quite a different race to the Epsom Derby. Is it a much longer event?
Yeah, it’s based on the relay system
that Genghis Khan used when he was building his empire. The riders will ride a horse for 35 or 40 kilometres, they’ll change horses, get on the next one and there’s 25 to 27 stages of about 35 to 40km each – it’s run over the course of seven days.
Surely there must be some breaks in between?
They’re not allowed to ride at night, that’s the only break they get. Generally they start at about seven o’clock in the morning and they finish at about eight or nine o’clock, when it’s getting dark.
It sounds like a Tour de Mongolia by horse!
Yeah, one of the Grand Tours, but on four legs as opposed to two wheels! It certainly stretches the riders a lot more than it does the horses. It’s great to photograph. I’ll be back!
When you’re back at home, what do you like to photograph in your downtime?
Any sport, but we’re travelling more between here and Madrid. We’re looking to get residency in Spain, so we spend a lot of time here and a lot of time travelling around Spain,
photographing culture and the various cities we visit. I just got back from a riding holiday in Namibia. I lead some of these trips for Ride World Wide holidays, so got the team on horseback and obviously photographed a few landscapes.
These are riding holidays that you lead in various parts of the world? We host riding holidays. I’ve done a lot in the past. It was a really good trip and we’ve done more in the south of the country, but there’s not as much wildlife down there. I’d love to photograph more wildlife, that’s something that’s on the list to do in the future. I’m a big fan of David Yarrow’s wildlife photography.
Which other photographers particularly inspire you?
I helped host a photo holiday with Chris Weston and some of his wildlife photography is fantastic – that was a really good experience, listening to and seeing Chris work. We went to the Camargue in the south of France to photograph the wild horses there. Another equine trip! I really enjoyed that and I’d definitely like to pursue more wildlife photography in the future.
Are you someone who shoots a lot of photographs and then spends a lot of time editing, or are you more considered about how you frame and shoot?
I should be more considered, I think. If it’s a corporate shoot, like I did for a lady’s website down in Malaga recently, then yes, I did take a lot of images! I got the photos I wanted, but I only had a day to do it and that felt I just had to get what I could, so it wasn’t as considered as maybe it should have been. I shot the hell out of it but did manage to get what I wanted. Luckily, I had the time to go through them and spent a couple of days editing, so that was okay on that occasion. But, certainly if you’re busy you have to be more considered, at least, I think so.
Do you work with one lens more than the others?
I think the 24-70mm f/2.8 is the classic lens for me. You’ll nail the shot with that one, and then look at using your wide-angle or 70-200mm as well. But generally I tend to start with the 24-70mm. For that job down in Malaga, I relied mainly on the 24-70mm.
Which are your favourite pictures? There’s a picture on the landing page of my website showing two horses in a water-filled paddock in the Camargue. Then there’s another of a horse jumping the rail and a ditch on the course at Auteuil, taken from the side. It just reminds me of running around after Ed Byrne, who’s now well into his 70s. I run quite a lot but I just could not keep up with him! I also really love this picture I got of a grey horse jumping one of the biggest fences anywhere.
I’m looking at that picture now, that’s a hell of a jump!
It’s the rail and ditch. I fell off it once, and it was unfortunately when I was riding… I was luckier with the camera than I was riding over it. It’s quite a big stretch.
You’ve had to learn an awful lot, so what’s the best piece of advice that you have received?
That’s a tricky one. Just a simple thing we picked up at Spéos from a Dutch guy called Mark Prüst, one of the founders of World Press Photo. He said, check your corners and basically your framing. You can learn more with experience of course, such as separation of subjects within a frame, and I feel there’s always something you can work on, but framing and composition of an image is really important.