Toronto Star Photo Blog

Steve Russell - Staff Photographer - @RussellPhotos

Ten metre platform diver Roseline Filion slices into the water during training in the Montreal 1976 Olympic Pool diving tank.

Everyone, at sometime or another, wants the light to shine on them.

The exception has to be photographers.

We are happiest when the light shines on someone else.

And if we have a camera in our hands and they are doing something incredible, all the better.

Last month I covered the Olympic Swim Trials in Montreal, while there Randy Starkman and I also worked on a few other stories.

Canada's Olympic hopefuls in diving were part of that story.

The ladies train at the Montreal Olympic pool, a great legacy facility from the 1976 Games.

The whole set up is incredible and for a photographer the bonus is that there are great opportunities for nice clean images.

It has a very high ceiling, it is under the tower of the Olympic Stadium, and the walls have little on them.

It had one more important feature, a line of skylights lets in some natural light and on a sunny day it lights the diving tank in a light that photographers dream about!

I was there to photograph three of our Canadian Olympic diving hopefuls for London.

Jennifer Abel won a bronze medal in the three metre springboard at Worlds last year.

And the pair of athletes that qualified Canada for a spot in the 10 metre synchronized diving competition, Roseline Filion and Meaghan Benfeito.

As the athletes completed their dry land routine and moved over to the pool, I watched the ray of light through the skylight move across the Olympic Pool complex hoping and hoping that the ray of light would illuminate the area in front of the towers.

I prayed to the photo gods. They answered and the light shone down. Not on me, on the incredible athletes in front of my lens.

Early in the training session the light is flat and not very exciting, however the facility is huge and a photographer can blow out the background to make an image cleaner.