A Look Through Burton’s Lens

While Kyle Burton has never had an inkling to sit behind a horse despite growing up in a family fully immersed in harness racing, the 17-year-old high school student is instead enjoying racing’s best moments from a different angle

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Burton will be taking over as Truro Raceway’s new track photographer later this month.

“Lynn Curwin, the track photographer at the moment, is moving to England and she contacted me to see if I wanted to take over because I’ve been kind of doing it alongside her and she was happy to have someone that knew pretty well all the people that were going to be at the racetrack,” Burton told Trot Insider. “So she thought someone with a little bit experience would be good.”

"I suggested Kyle as the track photographer because he knows the people, knows the horses and he takes great photos," Truro's current photographer Lynn Curwin told Trot. Curwin leaves on January 30 for England and returns in the summer.

The connection for Burton to harness racing is deep.

"My whole family on my mother’s side is involved [in harness racing] and my father, he’s been training horses for 30 years now. And my grandfather and my uncles are all involved. [My parents] actually have six, soon to be seven racehorses."

Burton, who is basically a self-taught photographer with a little help from his high school teachers, began to explore the art form a few years back.

“Actually it's kind of funny, a friend of mine got a good camera about three years ago and I was a little bit jealous so I went and got one and then I started taking pictures at the racetrack,” he laughs. “The first picture I sold was of Somebeachsomewhere when he qualified as a two-year-old.”

Since then, some of Burton’s photos have been published in Trot Magazine and he has set up a website displaying a selection of his work and offering his photography services.

Burton is currently in his final year of secondary school at Cobequid Educational Center and was recently accepted to Nova Scotia Community College’s two-year civil engineering program.

“I had a column in the newspaper, the Truro Daily News, about our school and a lot of people thought it was weird that I was going into engineering but I always had a knack for building stuff and taking things apart. Actually, I have a lot of family that work within the department of transportation so I have a good background in it.

“I don’t know how long I’d be interested in doing the same job my whole life,” he continued. “I kind of want to dab into politics a bit too. At the moment, I’m actually the student council president at our school and it’s a lot of fun and you meet a lot of people.”

Although Burton is still deciding on his career path, he says he plans on continuing photography alongside his future endeavors.