Photos

For five days each year at the end of June and beginning of July, the sleepy town of Henley, on the road between Oxford and London (as well as on the Tames River between the same two cities), is transformed into the rowing capitol of the world. Dozens of crews — rowers male and female, academic institutions private and public — converge on the site to display their rowing prowess. The boats are entered in different divisions: men’s eight, men’s four, women’s eight, single-sculls, etc. The competition is organized as single-elimination races (much as in a tennis tournament).

I shot this photograph early in the morning of July 1, 1988 before the day’s crew races had gotten underway, when a lone swan could be seen plying its way on the placid waters. The site is the finish line of the boat races and this swan is getting a head start on the races. This is the second photo I’ve posted from Henley, the earlier photo showed rowers from one of the university crews, wearing their university rowing blazers and straw boaters. This photo was shot with a Nikon-2020, loaded with Kodachrome-64 slide film. I recently scanned the slide to submit the image to TE.