The sun is harsh, sun off of water is harsh, so the flash was harsh. This shot was taken with a swivel head flash mounted on the camera, used either on high power or in this case, low power. Because the flash is away from the lens, and because I was perhaps 2 feet away from the model the flash didn't centre. That's fine with me since reflections don't need to centre.
What I meant by "seeing past the exposure" is that viewers should likely give a photographer the benefit of the doubt and assume that anything that blown out was noticeable to the photographer. I knew the first shot was blown out, really I did. ;-) I've even seen photographers state "lighting done this way on purpose"... and still I have seen viewers say "oh it's a little overexposed there". Yes... it is, and the photographer meant it to be, thanks for stating the obvious. Now the real question should be "is it a better, stronger, more memorable photograph because it's blown out"?
Photography doesn't have to be reportorial, not everything is a police mug shot, and often "mistakes" are not really mistakes.
The meaning behind the photograph? It's about flying isn't it? About that point between the dive and hitting the water? About how jarring it is to hit the cold water on a cold morning of a race in an outdoor pool?
As to why the blown out image, that has a lot to do with how I grew up (on a beach) and I had a very long discussion here: http://derekcooper.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=492 about that if anyone is interested.
Hey Kim I prefer this one, in the other one the flash is too harsh. However, in this one the flash doesn't really reach the whole subject. How exactly did you get the difference between the two shots? Flash exposure compensation? Did you use the built-in flash? As for the 'seeing past the exposure' remark: I don't think I really see what you try to achieve with this or the other photograph, but if one knows the meaning behind the photograph, it can indeed be so that the other picture becomes way more powerfull than this one, even though this one is technically more correct. Looking forward to your comments on my comments :-)
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