Here is a shot of Ohio State’s Chelsea Davis, the reigning NCAA 3-meter springboard diving champ. As soon as I got the assignment, I began brainstorming how I could shoot this portrait. I’ve shot a lot of diving action but only a few portraits, so I asked a few of my diving friends if they had any suggestions. I knew I would have the luxury of being able to climb to the top of the diving tower, so this was the best idea we could come up with. Since I’ve only been in the OSU aquatics facility a few times, and never for diving, my biggest concern was that I wasn’t going to have a clean background below the diving board. As you can see, it turned out perfect.

Chelsea is on the 3-meter board, and I climbed up to the top of the 10-meter platform to shoot down with my 70-200mm lens. It took a bit of moving around atop the 10m platform to get the right angle without any overhead lighting glare. I know I lost a bit of the sense of height with the longer lens, but it did a good job of giving me a clean background.

I used two lights for this. The first is shot into an umbrella reflector at the base of the diving board looking at Chelsea. The second light is below the board pointed at the water. Both were at half power triggered by Pocket Wizards.

Climbing up and down all those steps with my gear in a humid pool on a 90-degree day left me awfully sweaty by the time I got back to my car, but I’m happy with the result.

CAPTION:
Worthington Kilbourne graduate Chelsea Davis recently placed 12th at the U.S. Olympic trials on the 3-meter springboard. The Ohio State senior won the event in front of her hometown crowd at the NCAA championships in March.