Groom Reggie Williams takes a horse out for a walk in the early morning hours before the 90th Carolina Cup on March 29, 2025. Each horse is exercised before being led to the race track. (Photo by Jack Bradshaw/Carolina News & Reporter)
CAMDEN – The sun had not yet risen as a half-dozen cars, each packed with camera gear, bleary-eyed students and ample cups of caffeine, navigated winding dirt roads toward a lone tent that would serve as student-photographer headquarters.
With cameras on shoulders, the 20 students and instructor trekked their way across the fields and track toward the barns where trainers and groomers were busily prepping horses for race day at the historic Springdale Race Course.
Over the course of a 17-hour day, students captured a range of images – from beautiful, silhouetted horses and trainers in the pre-dawn light, to horses with their hooves pounding to the finish line – and produced a vivid visual narrative of the annual spring tradition.
The students, working in small groups coached by professional photojournalists, were participating in the Talmadge Moore LeGrand Photojournalism Workshop at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. They were photographing the 90th running of the Carolina Cup, a steeplechase racing event.
The workshop is funded through a generous grant established by Janet Tarbox and supported through a loan of professional photography equipment by Canon.
The experience is part of the JOUR 499 special topics course “A Photojournalism Adventure at the Carolina Cup: The Thrill of the Chase” and is open to students of any major.
Besides skillfully combining their technical and compositional skills to produce compelling storytelling imagery, students were responsible for interviewing their subjects to provide accurate, detailed captions, and to edit both photos and captions on deadline that evening.
The workshop was created by associate professor Denise McGill and taught by instructor Renée Ittner-McManus.
Serving as photo mentors during the three-day workshop were photojournalist Yoshi James with the San Francisco Chronicle, freelance Beaufort-based photographer John Wollwerth, Winston-Salem Journal photojournalist Allison Isley and Melissa Melvin-Rodriguez, a photojournalist with the Charlotte Observer.
Why the students went to Camden: A special thank you to Janet Tarbox for sponsoring the Talmadge Moore LeGrand Photojournalism Workshop at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications (Video by Julia Spies/Carolina News & Reporter)
More photos from Jack Bradshaw, Destini Simon, Darby Bianco, Katie Cannon, Madelyn Farley and Augusta Lewis
