about the subject

The swimmer is Erin Ewalt, the only senior on Randolph-Macon College's swim team. She is the only swimmer in the history of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference to be named ODAC Swimmer of the Year FOUR TIMES!!!. Not only is she an exceptional athlete, she is a top-notch student, and involved in the college community. By all means, she deserves all the recognition she gets.

some background

I am very, very fortunate to be working with a sports editor who's vision is extremely out of place in a local weekly newspaper. But, he's where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do, and I am everso thankful for that. Together, we are building a work product that goes far beyond the typical weekly newspaper. The main things that hold us back are antiquated printing equipment and an inadequate budget. All the same, we make due, pushing ourselves to produce at a higher standard than what is normally expected.

One of the things Tom likes to do is to make sure superior performers get the attention they have earned. We are lucky that our area has a number of talented, deserving high school and college athletes. Even if they don't set the world on fire, they definitely make their marks locally. Between Tom's ability to chase down stories and my ability to produce quality artwork, we have been filing the sports section with solid content. And it has been a lot of fun.

about the shoot

When we approached Erin's coach about doing a feature on her, he was thrilled. He appreciates just how rare an opportunity he's had to coach someone like Erin--and he really wanted her to get the attention that usually goes to the football and basketball players. He told us we could "try" to shoot her in a meet, but that if we wanted to get good shots, we should do it when we could have the pool to ourselves, and when there would be good light. I was whole-heartedly behind this, having experience shooting meets.

So we scheduled a late afternoon shoot when we would get the best light in the pool, as well as have at least an hour before the rest of the team would show up for practice. And what a tremendous hour it was! Erin was a dream to work with. She seemed to have as much fun as I did, trying different dives and strokes while I tried different angles and different shots. All in all, I came away with a great catalog of images to work with, and can't thank Erin enough, not just for the opportunity, but for her help.

about the shot

Almost everybody ask about how the shot was set up, as if it were actually planned. I am sorry to disappoint, but it was a completely inspired, spontaneous shot. I had been shooting her coming off the wall for a backstroke dive, and I thought that a shot of her under water would be cool to try. About 10 yards from each end of the pool, there are poles on each side of the pool that have a rope with flags going across it to let the swimmers know they are almost at the end of the pool. I stepped down onto the deck, grabbed a pole, and found that I could lean out to get my camera to just about exactly halfway across the lane. Grinning, I asked Erin if she could swim under water for me.

She made one pass for me to get some test shots so that I could get my settings dialed in. Then she made a couple more passes. I was shooting in burst mode, simply tracking her as she passed underneath the camera. If you look at the original, you can see the camera and camera strap's reflection on the bottom of the image.

the original

I knew immediately, as soon as I saw the first test shot, that those bubbles were going to create an over-the-top image. It was just a matter of getting enough to work with--and we were starting to run out of both light and time.

the end result

It almost goes without saying, this issue of the paper has been a huge hit. I believe it's safe to say that Erin was absolutely stunned by the images and the treatment she got. My photo collage was the whole front page, her story and another huge image made up all of page 2, and the story had to be jumped to the back page to be completed. I didn't show her or her coach any of the images prior to publication; we wanted it to be a surprise.