Phone Calls and Swimmers

I received a call last week from a parent of an athlete in the area. I don't regularly get phone calls from parents, but she was very excited. She saw her daughter’s photograph in the paper, and loved it. So we chatted for a few minutes about how the photo was made and I let her know how to go online and purchase prints.

I think, for the most part, I work in a bubble. I don’t live in the county in which I work. And there are only two photographers at the paper, so feedback can sometimes be rare, although the people I work with are very complimentary, when we bump into each other. Call it ego. Whatever. I really love when people love my photographs. In this case, it was an all-area athlete who I really went all-out in trying to create something interesting and spectacular. I can’t say necessarily that it’s entirely original, but I think I made the photo my own.

Gabrielle Mizerak, getting dumped on at the GMU Freedom Aquatic Center in Manassas.

On an email list I belong to, called A Photo A Day, I’d seen someone execute a swimmer of the year portrait with splashing water, and that's where I got the idea. But I suppose it’s all about making it your own. And of the hundred or so frames I grabbed of this girl, this is just about it. There were a couple useable ones, but when I popped past this one, I just went, “oh! I got it”.

I know in the digital age, you can peek at the back of your camera, but you still just don’t know until you look at it on screen. Sometimes it just isn’t in focus, or in this case the eyes are closed, the water is too distracting, but I knew I had something workable, so after about a half of an hour of having her stand underneath some alternating buckets of water, I let her leave. Poor girl. She had her hair done and everything when she showed up. She just didn’t know what I had in mind.

And I’m glad. I could have turned out an easy, “safe” picture, but I tried for something a little bit better, and it worked. And this is why every day, no matter the repetitiveness of the assignment, sometimes an idea works and a photograph is just so cool.

The other picture is the boys swimmer of the year. I thought this was pretty fun, too. I just had him hop off the starter block backwards. But I thought it would be more difficult to execute. He was incredibly receptive to every bit of instruction. Turn a little this way, straighten up a bit, close the mouth…etc. I had lots of instruction, and considering what I had in mind, he was perfect. We could have been done in ten takes, but I couldn’t get the timing down right. I just wanted him to barely touch that water. He went to a catholic school, after all, and I couldn’t resist the dramatic lighting, the walking on water. I only wish I could have lit the background or the water underneath a bit, but it required some more gear I didn’t have. So I went with this.

Jameson Hill, of The Seton School, in Manassas, set a couple state records.

No phone call from his mother, though. No worries, I’m happy with it and I plan to come up with some more ideas in the future.