Photographers Blog

How Did He Shoot That?

Alain Bernard of France is seen from underwater as he enters the water to set a new world record of 47.60 seconds during the 100m freestyle in the men’s semi-finals at the European Swimming Championships in Eindhoven March 21, 2008 (Photograph by: Wolfgang Rattay).

It is of course not possible for a photographer to be in the pool during a swimming competition, but that doesn’t stop a determined photographer getting the picture!

I have worked on this problem over a number of years, and got it down to a fine art. It is necessary to pre-position an underwater housing containing a regular Canon EOS 1D Mark 2N with (usually) a 15mm fish-eye lens. When the swimmers hit the water or swim over my camera, I release the shutter via a waterproof cable. The data is transferred from the camera to another housing containing a Canon transmitter that transfers the images from the camera to my laptop.

Above: Setting up my equipment at Eindhoven

Within seconds of the end of the race I am in a position to transmit the photographs to our desk operation in Singapore. The desk then immediately moves them globally.