As you can see by the pictures that Ilda is celebrating it's tenth year of these swimming of the laps to raise money and awareness for the fight to cure both Leukemia and Lymphoma.

You can also see that I take lots of unusual pictures to capture action and color and form and contrast and the odd moments as well as the ones we are all accustomed to looking at. I want more of a complete picture of this moment in time.
I love the irony here of someone dunking their heads into the water after feeling hot and tired from swimming. This is their way of cooling off naturally. Obvious, huh? Of course it is to anyone looking at this picture ...

Those of you will know that it is you that I snapped these pictures of. For the rest of you you will hopefully enjoy the composition and anything else that attracts and reaches out to you in them.

It was a beautiful morning this and it felt great to be a witness to all of this. I did not count the laps this time but my wife did and my son swam once again.
I love that this swimmer's cap says Ilda on it and helps to tell some of this story by providing the necessary details to perhaps give us the name of the swimmers as well as the pool? In this case it gives us both swimmer and place : nice, I really like that.
I liked it so much obviously that I copied the picture twice. Oops!

Cheers and a BIG CONGRATS to everyone involved in this important event. You guys are the best!

I love this picture of this swimmer reaching out to touch the wall. He or she is in earnest here and serious about their quest. This is not a time of levity or of clowning around : this is a time to accomplish something quickly and effectively. I love seeing the hands, arms and fingers all stretched/ flexed to the max! Bravo!!!

It's now perhaps time to go a lap a bit more slowly and use one of the red kicking boards? Not a bad idea, pace yourself : let both your body and blood flow rest a bit so that you may pick up the pace on the next lap all over again.
Remember, for each lap you swim there might be a friend or relative giving money here to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society? There was in the case of our son : that I know for sure.

It's fun to watch these turns : lots of motion and splashing and bubbles as well as the colors of the bathing suits, too.

I'm in awe of these young swimmers that still have the energy and the healthy racing blood flow to do these flips after so many laps! It sure does take energy here and these swimmers have it. They are fortunate indeed.

Love the colors in the swimmer's caps : look at the yellow / look at that blue!

Here are two swimmers about to reach the wall and either flip and turn or simply touch the wall and turn. What will it be?

I love taking pictures of the swimmers underwater. Look at the form and the color, the motion / emotion displayed here. It's a painting in the water in motion and I am glad to have caught it with the help of mu old, reliable Kodak Easy Share CX 4200 camera.


I like these pictures and the colorful sign that someone made here to mark the 10th year celebration.



Here we have one of our young swimmers counting the laps. What a bright smile : I also love the white t-shirt that states the cause for all of this. Good choice.
I love that the white t-shirt says : " Fighting blood related Cancers ".
As you all know it takes blood coursing through one's veins and arteries to get the heart pumping wildly to get the energy one needs to swim so quickly and rack up lap after lap after lap here.
Let's find a way to get everyone's blood back to where it has to be to be able to swim these laps. Everyone knows that once a cure is found for one thing that unfortunately something else will come around to take it's place. Thus we need to lick these two problems and get everyone back on track.

At Ilda's awards ceremony tonight ( Sunday, July 25th, 2009 ) it was mentioned that someone suffering from another serious ailment a year ago was able to swim 19 laps here. This made the announcer bow her head on someone's shoulder and break down in tears. I wish I had seen that person swimming but was unaware of the situation until tonight.
Look at the yellow cap with all the color and forms on it. I love that, really I do!

It's fun to work with cameras and to see what you can get with the lapse time between snapping the picture and it actually taking it. It's a bit of a compromise as you never quite know what will turn up here. I love the fun and the challenge of it all.

Shade and sunshine : I love this picture : one side is all washed out in bright sunshine and the foreground is all clear and crystal-sharp in shade. Did it make any difference to the swimmers whether they were in sunshine or shade? I will have to ask my son tomorrow if I can remember.

Two people watch their friend in the picture above in their turn.
In the picture one swimmer in the lane swims in earnest the free style while another submerges themselves to cool off I suppose / maybe to goof-off, too : or both? Fun to see the contrast here in the same photo.


I really love the silhouette of these three swimmers that are in the shade of the big trees around our pool. You can't quite make out who they are. It does not matter. The swimmers themselves will know who they are as well as perhaps their parents. That's okay as it is not so much about them as it is them working for a great cause : one that they can be proud now and later that they were a part of.
Time to rest and time to swim as you see one of the two boys set off for the other end of the pool here in the picture below. Is he also heading for the sunlight?


I love this swimmer above as you can get a sense that he has already swum a number of laps already and is not quite as concerned as earlier on with hitting that pool wall quickly. I can't say that I blame him.

Can you please tell me how many laps I have swum? I need to know, really.
Turns out that one boy and one girl tied in swimming 138 laps : the most of anyone this year. Congratulations to you bot for as a job well done.

I've just posted this on Sunday afternoon, July 25th, 2009 I believe at 4:43 PM and I just looked at it once more.
I'm glad that I took these more artsy photos and not so many close-ups. It's really nice to capture the moment like this I believe. This way it's more about a group of dedicated individuals from the parents and the people from The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as well as the young swimmers that swam lap after lap after lap this morning.

You can see from the photos that there was both work and play going on here. Yes, the swimmers were swimming laps and asking every so often how many they had already swum : as well as stopping, chatting, smiling, laughing, relaxing.
In this picture above they have completed their mission quite successfully and are now able to relax and enjoy themselves and each others' company as they are all really good friends having know one another for years. It's nice as a parent to realize this looking at this picture as I am now before finally posting this blog for the last time I hope now.

It was all in an early morning's good swim for a couple of great causes as well as good camaraderie. There was purpose and joy and good will displayed here.

I wish that I had been able to get in the pool and swim some laps. Why were none of the parents of these fine young swimmers not asked to get in the pool and swim some laps? Perhaps that may be included next year on our eleventh swimming of the laps?!?







Every year at Ilda there is an annual swim by the swim team to help draw attention and money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's quest to find cures for these two deadly diseases. Here are some of the pictures that I took of this year's event at Ilda this past month at Ilda in northern Virginia.
The pictures are more artsy and less specific of individuals. They reflect more the event and the energy, color, motion, activity and the enthusiasm and dedication of those individuals.
Being an artist myself I am interested in many aspects of the moment s here from color and composition and contrasts of lights, darks, sky and water, trees, structures, motion, whatever. I hope you enjoy these pictures and are encouraged to contact the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and do what you can either in active service or in money-raising or donations, or both.
Enjoy these pictures, cheers ... TONY