241 - The Swimmer

Have I ever mentioned Gänsehäufel? It is an island in a former part of river Danube that was left over when they regulated the river. The island is the biggest bath in Vienna, and it’s a wonderful place. It is so big, that even on hot days it is never unbearably crowded. Much less so yesterday. Weather was fine, although a little dull. The bath closes at 8pm, but even at 7:30 it was almost empty. At the same time the evening light became warm and clear, and I shot a series of images of one of the pools, the one with the wave machine. I was really fascinated by the reflections of warm sunlight on ripples of water. This is something that gets almost hypnotic when you look at it and let yourself fall.

Don’t ask me about the composition. It is so absolutely against all rules, but it somehow feels perfectly right to me. I have rotated the image by a very small angle, cropped it slightly and cloned out some minor distractions, all this in Photoshop. The image was shot with the Nikon 50/1.8 at f8 and 1/125s. The sign with the arrow in the background means “swimmer”. Well, don’t believe it. It’s a lie. There was no swimmer to the right. Honestly.

The Song of the Day is “The Swimming Song” from Eddi Reader’s 1992 album “Mirmama”. You don’t know Eddi Reader? She was the singer of the fantastic group Fairground Attraction, that unfortunately didn’t last longer than a single album, but this album was absolutely stellar. We’ll certainly come back to it. Eddi has since had quite a respectable solo career, and this album was the beginning.