Went back up to Choate today to practice some water polo photography. This is yet another sport I had no experience shooting, but I have (sort of) played before, and I know the basic rules, so it was pretty easy to adjust to shooting. Water polo is an intense sport; not only are you treading water or flat-out swimming the whole time, but you have to fend off fouls from the other team. The ref was pretty good at catching them, but I had a far better vantage point than he did (the viewing area for the pool is elevated, which was great for nice clean backgrounds), aaaand he missed a lot.
The lighting in the pool area is awful and dark (and red- what?), and I was already intentionally underexposing in order to get the shutter speed I needed…so there was a lot of color correction involved in these. I know that in a perfect world you’re supposed to shoot correctly in-camera, but it was more important to me to have that shutter speed (I was using 1/250, and in some cases even that wasn’t fast enough) than to listen to my light meter. 
It’s basically an advanced game of “Not touching! Not touching!”
After several failed attempts to actually get the ball in mid-air, I had a brainwave and decided to try shooting vertically instead. This led to a couple of compositions that I liked (I’m a big fan of busy compositions), as well as a freaking photo of a goal save, which I had also been trying to nab.
Color-corrected for the pool…not the sidelines, which remain bathed in red (why red? can some swimmer help me out?)
Impressive! This looks like a really tough sport to shoot! I, personally, really like the effect of the vertical with the color-corrected pool but not the sidelines, it’s a neat effect. And I would ask Jackie about the redness, she was a swimmer & shot a lot of water sports.
Loving the action shots! I really like the composition of the sideline shot, the silly red thing notwithstanding.
Thanks guys! Laura, if you ever get the chance to shoot water polo…it was way more easy than I thought it would be, because the water slows down all of the action (hooray!), so you have more time to prepare for a shot. I would love to shoot in a better-lit area, though. Maybe some day…