I'm a joker, I'm a smoker

As a part of the series I shot on the Maryland horse racing industry I shot Mike. Mike was a better. NOT a gambler as he told me. He was playing odds, and playing odds is not gambling. 

   You couldn't have come up with a better character for the shot though. He wore a leather jacket that had a big rip in it and a leather hat that he wore turned back with a tear on the left side. His daily intake of tobacco included both dip and cigs. He walked around with a curled up notebook that he jotted down notes on the bets he made. 

   Mike was studying to be a nurse, but he also did standup (although I don't remember him saying a thing that made me laugh), he was working on some screenplays and he seemed to have a couple other odd jobs that were getting him by. He fit right in with the crowd at the Laurel track that included the young, the old, the working class, the business class, the retired and the tired. If you ever want to see a strange slice of life hit up a horse track on a weekday. 

   Throughout the entire shoot Mike talked. He talked about the industry going down the drain. He talked about his standup. He talked. He explained odds and betting to me, although I admit I left with only a hazy understanding of how it goes down. He almost had me convinced that it was more skill than luck as he showed how he studies up on who the jockeys and breeders are. He tracks how different horses do on different surfaces and distances. I was nearly convinced...then he placed a bet who would come in first, second and third in three consecutive races. No way that is anything but luck! 

   We shot these images in the huge grandstand area that sits empty nearly all the time. Partly because of how small the crowds are and partly because what crowds are there mainly watch from inside on TVs. These shots were some of the few moments that I caught Mike not talking. The horizontal one remains one of my favorite shots. I grabbed the betting slips out of the trash. Turns out there are people called stoopers who's whole thing is looking through trash cans trying to find winning slips that people have accidentally thrown out.