Personal Journey and Adventures of Nina

Just for a change I thought I put all of the highlights together into a short video for you! This annual meet at SOPAC Olympic Park Aquatic Centre is always a lot of fun. I saw kids from different teams hugging each other throughout the event. Despite the torturous 6 days and nights of heats and finals, the kids never tired. Although I surely did! There was also plenty of opportunity for some great action shots because we have the best in the State here at the event so technique is pretty good by now. The greatest highlight for me was watching the legend Chris Fydler swim so watch out for this post! Speedo heats next should be an altogether different challenge as the kids are aged 6 years - 13years. See you there! If you would like to see all of the highlights from the State Champs, click here . Nina Beilby is a professional photographer based in Chatswood, Sydney, Australia. You can see more of her work at  www.ninabeilby.com.au .  Social Media:   Facebook |  Twitter

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.

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

The start of the short course season brings groups of swimmers from around the area aiming to make personal best times for State and Metro which are only weeks away. For me it meant the first time using my Canon Mark IV. I had a few adjustments to make but then got the hang of the amazing rapid fire...a far sight quicker than the Mark II. In addition to the 10 fps, I liked the extra zoom. The 300mm lens is just too bulky for me so it's a nice compromise to stick the 70-200mm on the 1.3x sensor. The lighting at SOPAC is all but non existent. At one stage I was feeling ready to sleep it was that dark. Around 12800 ISO dark. These challenges are sent to try us!

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.

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

Another successful meet for the Lane Cove Swim Club. We really enjoy these SMNE meets as they are well organized, they combine the little and big swimmers and they are generally on time...it also was great that we won the door prize - a money tree full of scratch-it tickets. Here are some of the highlights: