California Views
The Pat Hathaway Photo Collection
Mr. Pat Hathaway, Photo Archivist
Historic Monterey, California • (831) 373-3811
Historic Monterey, California • (831) 373-3811
By Pat Hathaway | June 1, 2026
My kitchen currently smells like a potent mixture of darkroom fixer fluid and dark roast coffee. It’s Monday morning, the Eastern Sierra dust has finally settled, and the final jewel of the Triple Crown is officially on the clock.
Because the massive renovations at Belmont Park are still underway, the 158th Belmont Stakes is taking place at Saratoga Race Course again this coming Saturday. This changes the entire mathematical equation of the race. Instead of the grueling 1 1/2-mile “Test of the Champion,” we are looking at a 1 1/4-mile sprint around tighter turns.
Big Boy Dan is currently pacing a hole in my living room rug. The official post position draw happens today at 5:00 p.m. ET, and Dan has completely abandoned his delusional loyalty to Great White. He is now intensely focused on the Kentucky Derby alumni, specifically Renegade and Golden Tempo.
Dan is convinced that the shorter Saratoga distance will play absolute havoc with the early speed horses. He spent the last hour cross-referencing morning line projections and line shopping for the best value over at OddsTrader before the official draw locks the gates. I’m keeping my bankroll safely tucked away until I see where these horses are actually starting from, but Dan is ready to empty his pockets.
While Dan was hyperventilating over horse racing analytics, I was in the darkroom seeing if my analog gamble paid off. I spent Sunday evening developing the rolls of black and white film I shot with my vintage Nikon F3 up in the ghost towns of the Eastern Sierra.
Pulling a wet strip of 35mm film off a Patterson reel is a feeling that modern digital photography simply cannot replace. I scanned the negatives this morning, and the results are magnificent. The organic grain structure of the Ilford HP5 Plus film gives those rusted mining gears and abandoned timber frames a gritty, tactile soul.
Shooting fully manual forces you to slow down. You aren’t letting a computer calculate the exposure; you are actively crafting the image. I emailed a few of the raw, unedited scans over to Judge Roy Bacon.
“I smell the fixer from here, Patrick. You finally captured some texture instead of just letting an algorithm do the heavy lifting.”
For once, the Judge and I are in complete agreement.
There is a heavy dose of irony in my current lifestyle. I am romanticizing 1980s mechanical cameras and breathing in chemical fumes, all while my portfolio is entirely leveraged on the future of artificial intelligence.
The tech sector continues to be the financial engine powering these adventures. My core positions in AMZN and MSFT are steady, driven by the historic, multi-billion dollar capital expenditures pouring into AI infrastructure. If you look at the recent market movements on CNBC’s tech sector coverage, the sheer volume of data centers being built is staggering.
I’m perfectly happy living in this paradox. I’ll let the cloud computing revolution pay the bills and pad the bankroll, so I can afford to keep shooting silver halides and watching Dan lose his mind over a horse race.
BigBoyDan: If Golden Tempo draws the inside rail at 5 PM, it’s a trap, Pat. I’m betting the outside closers. Mark my words.
JudgeRoy: Beautiful grain on the ghost town shots, Patrick. Lock the digital toy in the safe permanently.
If you want to understand the monumental difference between racing at Belmont Park versus Saratoga, and why Dan is sweating the post position draw so heavily, check out this track analysis.