How Does this Work? (Extended Version)
ProSwim Visuals takes action photos by reservation only on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations are for the service of photographic coverage and the generation of proofs. Proofs may be ordered once they are posted after the meet.
Once your reservation is processed, our photographers take as many pictures as time and space allow before, during, and after your athlete’s swim to tell the story of his or her race. Longer events are better for photographs regardless of whether or not your swimmer is faster over shorter distances because we get more time to work - you will not be able to tell how fast he or she is going by looking at one of our pictures. IMs are the best value because you get all four strokes photographed, but they tend to fill up quickly. Please note that for popular events such as the 200 IM, we likely will be photographing many heats in a row, and when one swimmer is on the block, the swimmer immediately prior is finishing in the water - we cannot photograph both looks in every case. To increase your chances of getting a nice picture pre/post-race, try to select 200s or longer to give our photographers extra time to maneuver on deck.
Once your swimmer’s race is photographed, we cull the images and post selects online, sending you a link, password, and information about our customary 20% off post-event sale via email. Please note that while our photographers’ cameras are capable of shooting 10+ frames per second, we do not have a set number of images that we promise to produce per race. Instead, we guarantee your satisfaction with both the quality and selection of your proofs and will refund your reservation with no hassle if you do not love the results. The reason we have this policy is simply that a 400IM will produce significantly more images than a 50 backstroke, especially if your swimmer is going 15m underwater off of each wall.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING ONLINE RESERVATION SYSTEM
Our online reservation system enables us to process reservation requests in parallel, which means no waiting in line at our desk to reserve if you have a smart phone or other internet-connected device. That said, reservations are nevertheless first-come, first-served. Our editing team is monitoring the entries in our reservation system in real time and highlighting swimmers in our heat sheet master copy in the absolute order in which events were reserved, even if there is only a few seconds' difference between reservations.
The down side to having no lines is that we cannot always work one-on-one sequentially with each customer to determine what heats are still available and confirm selections immediately. We should, however, be able to confirm whether or not a given heat was photographed by the following session - please visit our desk to enquire. We cannot confirm selections via email until after a meet’s conclusion.
In the case that two reserving swimmers are seeded into the same heat, the later reservation will be refunded or substituted at the client's discretion. While we will make every effort to contact you in the case of a conflict, IT IS THE CLIENT'S RESPONSIBILITY to confirm reservations for non-preseeded events by visiting our desk once final heat sheets are published. We also will attempt to contact you for a refund or substitution on the rare occasion that we miss a heat due to a reseed we were unaware of or another similarly unforeseen issue. Please keep in mind that ProSwim provides live-action photography and that there is therefore some inherent risk we will not be able to photograph a requested heat.
FINAL NOTES
If you are signed up for a 100IM or 200IM and are especially keen to get all four strokes photographed, we recommend selecting freestyle as your second event because the last leg of those races have a relatively low conversion rate (~80%) due to splashy kicks and one-sided breathing.
The pictures really do turn out well. Whenever possible we get down eye-level with the athletes to show a perspective you just don’t normally see.