Breast, Basking and Cheese

These shots were taken at my son Forest’s last swim meet. I live about 100 feet from the Trinity River and I get great piece of mind knowing Forest is a strong swimmer. All these were shot with on my D70 and Nikkor 70-300 f4-5.6D ED.

The first shot is zoomed in on Forest "sucking air" near the end of his first race in the morning; the 100-meter breaststroke. I thought he won the race but he was DQed (disqualified) for a “flutter kick” coming off the first turn. Those eagle-eyed judges are so @#&*&^% picky especially at the turns when they can lean over and watch for the smallest infraction. Forest gets so frustrated when that happens because it is an unconscious thing on his part. I’d set iso at 400 to get a fast shutter for the diving start and kinda forgot to reset to 200. I didn’t need the 1/1000 sec. and it would have come out a bit sharper at 200. Oh well, at this stage of my life I’m glad I remembered to bring my camera.

1/1000 sec, f9, 300mm, iso 400, RAW


The meet was held in small farming town of Etna, which lies in a small valley in the mountains of northern California, so there was still quite a chill in the air after that first race. Like a lizard, Forest went looking for a sunny basking site to warm up and I went stalking. Ahhh how I fondly reminisce about “the good old days” when I’d point my camera at my little boy and immediately get a totally free and easy smile. Now, when I point my camera at Forest he invariably makes some weird 9-year-old-boy face; and this is what I get when have the audacity to I tell him to smile. Like father, like son :lol: . Anyway, this is a shot of cold 9-year old boy basking in the sun and mugging to his dad’s camera. The OOF yellow wild poppies over his shoulder add a nice touch to this “warm” shot I think.

1/320 sec, f8, 300mm, iso 200, RAW
View attachment 13665

OK, right up front I’ll warn you that this is a total “cheese” image. Kinda like an aspiring sculptor tying balloon animals for kids at the fair; not exactly art, but what the hey, the kids love it. This is Lily, the youngest swimmer on our team (her first year). Lily and I have had a great relationship over the years and I have given her a number of “heavily manipulated” pictures of herself that she loves. After watching her first race, I was blown away with how her super energetic start gave her a near unbeatable lead from the get-go. So, I told her she looked like superwoman flying and that I’d make her a picture to prove it. So, as luck would have it, she was in an outside lane for her last race of the day and I was able to position myself for this planned “out of frame” image. She won overall first place for her age class and has this picture hanging on her bedroom wall.

Also, I humbly apologize to the unknown meet official standing behind Lily whose legs got turned into redwood trunks when I manipulated (skewed) the perspective.

The two Lilys: 1/1000 sec, f6.3, 70mm, iso 400, RAW. The background was a CP5700 cloud shot from my library.
View attachment 13666

 

Thank you Kevin. I like to think that I have (at least every now and again) a creative mind. But, I am standing on the shoulders of others. Somewhere a saw really wonderful "out of frame" image of a tiger drinking water from a separate "frame" and had the idea that capturing Forest diving at the start of a race would work too with a bit more of a heavily skewed perspective. So I've been keeping my eyes open for "the shot" to work with. As chance would have it, Lily provided the opportunity first; Forest swam all his races that day in inner lanes where I couldn't get the proper perspective. A heavy-handed playing in PS turns some folks off and I can certainly understand that point of view. But dang it... it is fun!

 

Gordon, Lisa, Frank
Thank you for your kind appraisals.