Personal Journey and Adventures of Nina

A great meet for young swimmers as the qualifying times are very generous. It's lovely watching the high fives all around for the little medal winners!  It's also a good meet for the older kids chasing State and Metro times.. AND the relays are a BLAST! You can see the rest of the photos on my swim site. Just click here .

Normally beside the pool, I decided that with James Magnussen, Andrew Abood and Matt Abood among other fine swimmers in such a short and close race, there was no chance of catching an action shot in the water so I decided to rest this one out taking a seat on the dias directly behind to watch. What caught my attention was the incredible focus of the swimmers...so I shot it. Here is the story. Planning the swim. When I watch younger swimmers behind the blocks. They fuss with their goggles, their caps, their suits and every other distraction you can imagine. No such agitations  for these professionals. You can see in their expressions, staring down the length of the pool, that they are running the race through in their heads...such focus! Matt Lane 3, James Lane 4, Andrew Lane 5 Bet you are wondering what happened next? James and Matt tied for second with 22.56 and Andrew made State Open Champion with an awesome 22.38. You can see more highlights from the State

A great meet for loads of young swimmers. Lots of PB's and smiling faces here. If you want to see all of the photo's, just click here . This will take you to my official swim website.

Thank you to Narelle and other organisers at Cherrybrook Carlile for inviting me to shoot at their meet this past weekend. It was great to switch to the long course format for an interesting change. All of the images are available on my swim site. (click here )

Well, it's official. Contracts have been signed and I am now the official photographer for NSW Swimming . You will find all your official swim action photographs from all NSW Swim events such as State Championships, Metro Championships, Country Championships and more, all here on my official swim site.  I will offer prints, canvases, jpegs and Memory Mates with the name of the event as well as swimmer name. You just need to sign up at the Photo Desk at each event. Remember, only two swimmers per race so get in early! See you at The Championships. Memory Mate

This was a large and long meet with lots of swim clubs in attendance. Many swimmers were trying to beat their personal best times in order to qualify for the upcoming Metro Championships. Don't miss the opportunity to get some of these wonderful images for your club or yourself. They are available in jpeg or print format. Just email me for the password.

Matthew Abood....Intense Focus SMNE (Sydney Metro North East) hosted it's popular Summer Sprint Qualifying Meet, this past weekend. A District meet attended by 9 year olds upwards who are here with the hope of making some personal best times and to get in some race practice before the upcoming school swim carnivals.  To the delight of these swimmers and spectators, also here to race were Olympians and Australian Champions, Eamon Sullivan, Geoff Huegill, Matt Abood & Andrew Abood.  The focus and preparation was intense. You can see Matt running the race through his head stroke by stroke. I had briefly met Matt at Lane Cove Swim Club' s recent 50th birthday celebrations. He is a kind and gracious man taking time out in between races to sign the T-shirts of all the awestruck kids. Eamon Sullivan getting ready to race. The crowd gathers to watch the 100m Free Andrew Abood Abood Brothers before the 50m Free Geoff Huegill preparing for the 50m

Swim photography is not just about capturing the strokes, although that is fun too. For me, I like to capture moments inside and outside the pool. The tension as a team mate is swimming a close race. Sheer joy or occasionally disappointment after a tough swim. This weekend, I am the official photographer for the SMNE Speedo Sprints. A big challenge because it is an indoor venue and the light is low.  Sometimes the swimmers didn't breathe, especially in the 50's. Other times they breathed away from me.  There were no breaks. Just 8 hours of walking around the pool taking shots. I don't really have a sports camera, so I had to rely on timing. My 200mm lens meant that I could only shoot 4 lanes...I really needed two of me! My memory cards filled up quickly, (approx 40GB) even with reviewing and deleting. I was able to download a card on to my portable hard drive whilst I filled the next card but I was nervous deleting the images from the card so that I cou