For some reason this past month I’ve seen an unusual number of photographs that I love.  So it’s been difficult to pick which ones to write about.  Today I’d like to point my readers to this great photograph by Clive Rose for Getty Images of swimmer Nail O’Leary competing in the men’s 200 m backstroke at the British Gas 2014 Swimming Championships in Glasgow, Scotland on April 14.

The image is appealing on several levels.  First, there is aqua blue pastel coloration.  Then there are the combined distortions of the aqueous refraction and the stretching due to the swimmer’s motion.  These give the image another worldliness where O’Leary looks almost like and alien.  This is turn puts a big question mark on the image.  What is it about and what exactly does it mean?  I think that it is a wonderful example of what can be accomplished with sports photography, where the goal is to give a sense of power and seeming effortless motion.