A shot in the dark

Posted by Gordon King on Oct 19, 2007 | Comments Off

The photo request seemed simple enough. I was to shoot a local diver competing in a meet at the local indoor swimming pool used by high schools. Still, I knew the assignment would be a challenge. I’d photographed swimmers there in the past and through that experience I knew the pool was dark making the use of a flash mandatory.

Flash photography is prohibited during diving events but I’d I figured my fancy Canon Mark IIN shooting in the RAW mode could deal with the darkness. After all, I had shot night football at Cle Elum High School without a flash. The diving part of the pool (Lions Pool for all those familiar with Yakima) isn’t just dark. It’s Dark with a capital “D.” The best exposure I could get was 1/125th of a second at 3200 ASA. Any movement by the diver resulted in a blurry image. Action shots were impossible. I shot a few frames of the diver on the board as she prepared to make her dive and was relatively still. The photo quality was acceptable but the photo was boring.

But I still had to get a photo of this diver. Plan A (action) didn’t work so I had to shift to plan P. As in portrait. I’m not a big fan of portraiture, especially when there is an opportunity for action or documentary photography. But sometimes a portrait is the only avenue available. And when they’re well done, a portrait can be very revealing.

So then my challenge became creating an engaging and telling portrait of this diver. Diving is an incredibly intense sport and divers, like all athletic contestants, must remain cool and collected to execute a dive. This diver is the best in our area so it’s obvious she could keep her cool under the pressure of a diving competition. So, I wanted to try and convey that coolness through the use of light and the pose of the diver. A blue-colored flash, underexposed background and an incredibly cooperative (and fun) diver yielded this portrait after a half-hour of shooting.

Still hoping for an action photo I left my strobes in place to shoot her diving during practice (when flashes are okay). Still, I wasn’t able to get a good action photo for a variety of reasons – her mouth was wide open, her legs or arms obscured her face, etc. I was frustrated at not being able to get a good action photo but knowing I had a good portrait in the bank made me feel better about the assignment.
I combined the portrait with a couple of non-action photos shot during the meet to round out the package.

The swim and diving coaches really wanted me to get an action shot of the diver but didn’t seem to understand it wasn’t technically possible. Sometimes a portrait is the only way to photograph a person. Especially when the alternative is a shot in the dark.

–Gordon King