Back At The Natatorium

One of the places where I have the best light to shoot in is the pool at the IUPUI Natatorium. Once you get away from the pool the light falls off quickly, but over the swimming lanes the light is amazing. This is a great place to make photos, and even though it is just an hour away from me I don’t get to shoot there very often. Luckily I have a team from three hours away that will hire me to photograph there.

Getting In Tight

One thing with swimming that you don’t often think about is the little amount of the athletes that you can see above the water. You would think that as close as you can get to them that a 70-200mm lens would do just fine. It really is not enough. Earlier this semester I played around with using my 600mm lens for swimming, and it worked quite well. I wanted to hedge my bets on Friday night though so I took my 400mm lens to the pool to use. The light was good enough that I could crop in if I needed to, and I would get a couple more shots of each swimmer by not being in so tight to them. Swimming shots do look so much better super tight though.

Violence In The Water

I don’t shoot a lot of swimming. Budgets usually don’t allow for that. When I get the chance to though I really enjoy it. Theses athletes are doing amazing things in the pool. The only way that I can think to describe it is violence. They are just pushing the water out of the way so that they can rip through it. I always say the same things at swimming that I do at track and field events. I wish that more people would come out to see the cool things that these athletes are doing. The precision and discipline needed are amazing.

The Little Moments

These are the little moments that are fun to capture. You have to stay on your toes, but they are much more satisfying to get than the moments in the pool. I love the contemplation here. It says a lot more than an action shot to me. What do you think?