This meet is one of my two favorite meets of the year—the other being the ATAC Long Course Invite over the summer.
I love swimming photos, and I think TECHNICALLY the level of swimming photography has gone up, BUT my creativity has decreased a little bit. I wanted to limit myself a little bit this weekend: I only shot with three lenses, all of which were fixed focal length (non-zoom) lenses.
A 30-40 year old manual focus wide angle, an autofocus standard lens, and a compact super-telephoto, all next to my primary camera
I also set a personal goal for myself of capturing more emotion during the meet, and less just boring, stock-photo-esque action images.
Nonetheless…a classic butterfly shot…
I was really proud of this, because I like the off-center composition, and completely filling the frame with a 300mm is challenging at best!
I liked the intensity here.Versus this ever-smiling person!I raised my camera up to take a picture and they all calmly and slowly turned away from me and hid their faces.
One of my favorite pre-race photos from this weekend…Team support!She FINALLY stopped looking away from me and let me take this picture.BOOP! Look at her tiny mouth!
I only coached one session out of a 7-session meet. And honestly it was one of the least rewarding coaching experiences in a while. I just wasn’t super stoked and didn’t feel like I helped that many kids out. I did have one or two really positive and exciting moments that I was PUMPED about, but overall the coaching part of the meet really let me down this weekend.
That resulted in two things: one, is I will strive to be a better and more inspiring coach during practices and at the next meet I work, and second was that I pushed my photos further to get some more emotional images.
Under the team cheering…!Karaoke? And dancing before a finals race Saturday eveningHugging it out.A highly respected 40+ year veteran of the sport discussing details with an incredibly talented swimmer, but relative newcomer to the world of coachingHe pesters me at every meet to get a photo of him swimming freestyle, but during sprint events the camera either can’t see through the spray or I can’t get a shot of him breathing…got a solid one (I think) on his 200yd free though.I liked this—isolation during a mile (1650yd) swim
Coaching/teaching about distance while counting togetherPost-mile feels…Pre-mile nerves…
Post-mile feels…At first I didn’t like the arm in the way—I was just trying to highlight all the ATAC caps…but then I decided that I thought it added depth to the image. It’s the arm of the starter mere seconds before the start of the longest event in pool-swimming.
[What I believe to be] A record SIX ATAC guys swimming the 1650 in the same heat.
Views while counting for the 1650Go.Sometimes former swimmers turn into coaches. And/or counters…
HIs first mile
I absolutely LOVE these next three images…The first two are of people I swam with while I was on a club team, and both of whom coach now. The third is my dear girlfriend and fellow coach.
To see my friends and former teammates inspiring children and excelling as coaches warms my heart and I really did smile looking at these photos today.
Goggles filled up, and were promptly ripped off along with her capPre-race good luck kisses
Two brothers from GSC congratulate each other after their relay narrowly edged out the #1-seeded ATAC relay
And that’s all I got for ya.
If you’re interested in looking at all 100+ images I saved and edited from this weekend, you’re more than welcome to check them out on in a gallery HERE.
