I covered this same meet last year, too, for The Dispatch, somewhat differently and somewhat the same. I don't like shooting the action in swimming. I think it's pointless. Everybody is shooting the action, which I think is pointless because the light over the water is generally awful and it's really just people bobbing their head up out of the water every-so-often. Everybody's seen that stuff...

It doesn't mean I can totally ignore the actual competition, but more interesting things are happening in the stands and on the deck. Where the moments are happening is where I want to be.

Quiet moments...

Quirkyness...

Louder moments...

Underwater moments...

[break]

Now these next two... I don't know... you all tell me. I'm not happy with either of them, really, on a technical level. They are slightly soft and grainy. But their news value makes them "necessary evils" of a sort. The swimmer, at far right, is a known phenom expected to perhaps qualify for the Olympics in the relatively near future. He broke his own record in the 100-yard butterfly by a full two seconds and finished almost three seconds ahead of all his competitors.

The first image, showing him finished with everyone else still swimming, shows that. The second of him in action with less of a lead, shows that perspective of the story slightly less so, but it is slightly sharper.

You be the editor...