The young boy's lips are pursed, his teeth bared with determination. A cane for a jockey's whip is carried gently in his left hand as he rides high in the saddle.
His horse clamps down on its leather bit while the crowd of helmeted and goggled riders astride their steeds close in on the leader down the stretch.
The frenzied action from the group raises clouds of dust from the makeshift, mud racetrack as behind them the setting sun casts streams of yellow and orange hues.
It's another day at the races in Iran - a country with a long history connected with equine mastery - one that Richmond photographer Kerri-Jo Stewart took a picture of during a recent visit.
The composition expertly captures the drama and tension of the race, a moment digitally etched in time. In short, it's visually stunning.
Yet it's not judged to be her best. In fact, for her work in Iran and nearby Turkmenistan, the self-taught photographer recently won the honour of photographer of the year, plus a pair of awards in the 2013 Professional Photographers of Canada competition.
"I was pretty surprised," admitted Stewart who, after moving to Steveston from her farm in Maple Ridge about 18 months ago, decided to seriously pick up a camera after just dabbling with photography previously.
"I needed to get a job," said Stewart who has a Masters in equine physiology. "So, I started doing photography, had some horse photos, and ended up writing a book on equine photography and what I'd learned so far."
Stewart had been working on the farm with dairy goats and was breeding Akhal-Teke horses, an ancient line from Turkmenistan and northern Iran.
"It's a really old breed. They haven't really been used in the west, and because the area is isolated, they haven't been developed into the modern, western horse like we see now," Stewart explained.
"They're like the horses you see on the cave drawings. They have a really high head set. They're very dry looking. Genghis Khan came over and bought some.
Alexander The Great also had them."
But when her book on photographing horses, Shooting Gold, was finished, Stewart's adventure was just about to begin. And it started with a strange email she was all too ready to banish to her spam folder.
"I thought it was spam, actually, because it said I had an invitation to come to Turkmenistan," Stewart said. "It had the president's name on it, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, so when it started off an invitation from the president, I deleted it. But I went back into my spam folder to check on it and realized it was real."
The invite was from the country's horse-breeding department called the Turkmen Atlary. Officials from Turkmenistan, which was a republic of the Soviet Union in Central Asia until 1991, had seen Stewart's book online and were asking her to visit their country to photograph the annual Day of the Horse celebrations, as well as their 20th anniversary of independence.
Intrigued with the offer, she packed her bags and made for Turkmenistan where she shot enough photos for another three books - two for the Day of the Horse - and one on the independence festivities.
From Turkmenistan, a group in Iran invited her to take pictures of horses in remote areas of that country where she ended up spending two months.
"Where I visited in northern Iran would be the equivalent of a community near the Arctic - like some little Inuit village. They didn't have running water or electricity."
She told the residents they needed a hospital and a school. So, she got in touch with the Iranian government to help get rolling on building the facilities.
"That's why I ended up staying there a couple of months."
And that's where she went to the races.
"In Iran they have regular horse racing around tracks, like we do," she said. "And the youngsters are paid jockeys. Some of the kids are probably 15 or 16. But in the countryside they don't have tracks. They just race. And if you're small, can ride and go fast, you can race."
Spectators contribute to a winner's pot, so a small fortune is rarely made unless the crowds are large.
When Stewart returned from her travels, she joined the Professional Photographers of Canada and submitted four pictures from her various trips to the group's annual competition.
In addition to the photographer of the year award, she ended up winning in the category of Best First Submission for an image of a horse with the backdrop of a stunning sunrise in Turkmenistan.
The second award was for Best Press Photo featuring a rigid line of rifle toting soldiers marching during the Independence Day parade in Turkmenistan.
"I'm not sure where this comes from," Stewart said when asked to explain her meteoric rise in the industry. "It's probably from my passion about the subject.
"Horses. That's my thing."
