How to Photograph Swim Meets

I photograph a lot of different events but I primarily do sports photography.  Everything from football to basketball and everything in between.  But I find the most challenging sport to photograph is swimming.  It is also the sport I most often see parents photographing from positions that do not offer the best opportunity to get a picture that stands out.

In football or baseball everyone understands the picture you want is when the quarterback is throwing the ball or the batter is swinging the bat.  But swimming offers a lot of unique challenges to photograph.  The most obvious is the swimmers are are underwater.

The breaststroke and and butterfly are the easiest to photograph.  For those events the best spot to photograph from is straight down the lane of the swimmer you want to photograph.  But one thing I see people doing all the time is they start trying to snap the picture when the swimmer is at the peak of their stroke.  When they see the point of action they want to capture.

The problem with this technique is when you wait until the action is occurring that you want to photograph, its to late.  No matter how fast you are, by the time you press the shutter button, the swimmer is already on their way back into the water.

Like any sport, the best way is to set you camera to continuous shooting mode.  Anticipate when the swimmer is about to come out of the water and begin firing away BEFORE they come out of the water.  Sure you will end up with a shot or two of them under the water, but this ensures you will get the picture at the peak moment.

Everyone wants to start snapping pictures as soon as the swimmers jump in the water.  Often times the swimmers are to far away to get a good shot.  The pool is 25 yards long.  With a 200mm lens or less the swimmer is just to small to fill the frame which means excessive cropping.  Wait until the swimmer gets closer to you to begin firing off your shots.

The other major mistake I see here in California is not paying attention to where the sun is when shooting the swimmers.  Many swim meets are day long events.  This means depending on the way the pool faces, in the morning the swimmer is either swimming with the sun to their face or their back.  If the event requires a turn, which many do, make sure you are shooting your shots as the swimmer is swimming towards the sun.  Otherwise you will end up with extremely heavy shadows on the swimmers face.

By far the most difficult stroke to photograph is freestyle.  This is because the swimmer has their face in the water most of the time.  And when they breath they look to the side.  I often see parents and the end of the swimming lane taking pictures.  All the picture is going to show is the top of the swimmers head as they swim towards the photographer and the bottom of their feet as they swim away.

I have found the best place to stand for freestyle is off to the side.  Either the side of the pool or a lane or two over from the swimmer I am trying to photograph.  Usually the best shots are the ones where you are behind and to the side of the swimmer as they look to the side to breath.