The Saga Continues: Swimming, Part Two

Cameras and water don't mix too well, so shooting swimming for a second time was a little nerve wracking. Covering this water sport was a little out of the blue (a swimmer friend informed me at the end of the school day that I WAS covering this afternoon's meet--news to me). And no pun intended.

The horrors of the water photographer is the fogging up of equipment when first entering the steamy pool from the cold outside. Until now, I had been spared this awful fate. Until now.

The fate, granted, is not especially awful and the equipment de-fogs quickly, but not in time for the first several events. I got ready to shoot them, when I looked up at the viewfinder and was greeted with a pleasant blur of color behind an impenetrable mask of semi-transparent white. In other words, the lens was fogged. And there's nothing you can do, but wait.

Once the camera recovered from it's bout with the shock of cold air to heavy humidity, it was time to shoot, and I was hoping to improve upon my last shoot, in December.

Some of my favorites:

This isn't your traditional swimming picture, but this meet was loud and intense, a big one for the boys team. There's emotion to be found all over the pool.

This shot is one of my favorites. #1, there's a face--a critical element to any good sports shot. People like to see faces. #2 the way she's breaking the water, combined with the calm reflection ahead of her adds to a neat effect.

I find this next one pretty interesting. It's really a study in the properties of water, how, if you look closely, the individual droplets splashed up by her swimming each cast their own, individual shadow on her arm:

This is the kind of shot I've been trying to get for a while: divers jumping off the blocks. As I detailed in an earlier post, shooting the divers as they leave the blocks in the beginning of a race is a bad idea, as firing the flash at the wrong moment could mean being thrown out of the pool--if not in the pool. This shot was taken during a relay race:

Both guys and girls won this one, and the girls have not lost for years now. Hopefully that'll mean a trip for some to districts, and a trip for me to some "playoff swimming."