Swimming Through the Foggy Glass...

I enjoy shooting swimming, but there is one thing I really, really hate about it, the fog. It has nothing to do with the event itself, but more to do with the timing and time of year and the weather. And, that's where the fog comes in, between it being cold outside and so warm in the pool area coupled with the natural humidity from the water means me walking in from 40 degrees outside and really low humidity to 80+ degrees and 85%+ humidity it mean there's going to be a nice frost on my lens. And that means I'm waiting, at least 30 minutes for my camera gear to thaw out per se, and basically just defog. There is no amount of wiping lenses with clothes that really help either, the moment you wipe off a little condensation another film of it appears before I can get off a shot, it's just a hurry up and wait effort.

So, one my lenses finally defog, I can get to work, after having missed about 3-4 races. Oh well, such is life, make do with what I have all complaining will do is miss me more races. There were still plenty of races left including a couple of relays, which are always exciting. District 5-4A is basically Wylie High School and all of the Wichita Falls ISD schools. Over the last two years this has been the extent of swimming coverage that I've gotten to shoot. Luckily Wylie has a pretty decent swimming team. I'd prefer a championship meet a little high on the food chain though since some of these races only have three swimmers, and some even only have one... basically all they have to do is show up, not false start and swim the stroke correctly and you move on to regionals.

One of the great things about the Abilene YMCA where the swim meets are held is the big picture windows on the east side of the building. Depending on the time of the day (really early morning around sun up is best) you can get some really pretty light. I liked the photo above, partly because it was one of the first ones I show after my lens finally defogged, but also because I'm a sucker for silhouettes. This was the tail end of the really nice light coming in, so I took a little chance and metered on the bright light. Then, looking for something fun that shows that these are still goofy high school kids and are out there having fun is almost as fun for me to find. Overall, I was pretty happy with the overall results I got from probably the only swim meet I'll shoot this year.

Summer Time...

It's hot, really really damn hot! The temperatures all week have been hovering around 100 degrees and the forecast for the whole week was pretty much the same... hotter than hell. Wednesday, I was looking for a weather feature. So, I went to one of the local swimming pools after having spent most of the afternoon looking for something other than a pool shot. Pretty much everyone was home, or otherwise inside hiding from the sun, I can't say that I blame them, I'd probably have been doing the same thing if I weren't working! But, I was. So I ended up at the swimming pool. This is pretty much a last resort type thing, in an effort to not shoot pool photos for every weather feature we try to limit the amount we shoot. So, when I do shoot at the pool, I make damn sure it's something I like. When I got there I made sure to get a safe shot, something of some kids splashing in the pool, in case I had to go home with my tail between my legs, after all I can't go back with nothing. It seems like when you show up at a pool with a camera, everyone wants to show off, then again, most of these kids were showing off before I got there, I think it's a teenager thing. After finding the right place I wanted to shoot from it was just a matter of sitting under the diving board and waiting for the right person to come into my shot. I spent a few more minutes looking for something better, but didn't find it. This was the shot I wanted, and it just took sweating off a few pounds and getting splashed a couple times (I didn't complain a bit about it, it actually felt good!). I'm just glad I fixed the air conditioning in my car a couple weeks ago.

Marlee and me....

I actually met Marlee Hager a year ago when we did a story on her and her sister, who was a senior in high school at the time and was committed to go swim at McMurry University. It would be the first time the two got to swim together competitively. This story, however, was for something our sports department was doing about graduating seniors at the three local universities. Marlee's story was the most visually appealing of the group, she was teaching swimming to fifth graders in the magnet school that is housed at McMurry in the kids' P.E. class.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I got there, I was afraid she was going to be teaching all of the kids by herself. Luckily there were a bunch of other swimmers there too and Marlee only had a group of four kids. This made it managable to shoot and gave some nice interaction with the kids. I got to spend pretty much the whole period following her around. My favorite pic was when she was teaching them how to start. They were doing it on the diving side of the pool, which is normally a miserable place to shoot during competition, since it is really a cave and there aren't even any lights and the skylights are all over the racing pool. However this time it worked out, there was enough light on her coming from the skylights it made most everything else blend into the background.

Swimming to Austin...

When it comes to swimming coverage we don't do a whole lot of it. Part of the reason is local swim meets are few and far between. It's actually kind of a shame because swimming is pretty fun to shoot, especially since it makes for a nice change from basketball. This particular story was about Eran Jennings, one of only two local swimmers to make the state meet. The great thing about shooting practice is I can shoot in places I normally can't during a meet. Like on top of the blocks during starts. I shot him doing about 10 or 12 starts, leaning over the water as far as I could. After the first few times I just had this vision of me leaning over too much and going in the pool with him! Luckily, that never happened and I got a decent shot I liked out of it. After getting the shot from the start I tried dragging my shutter a little as he was working on doing his turns and ended up getting something I liked a little better. That's the one we ended up running in the paper.