Sport: Fancier Dives

To publicize Los Angeles, its Junior Chamber of Commerce this spring decided on a “national aquatic show.” To publicize the aquatic show, Los Angeles Photographer Eyere Powell last week made striking photographs of Swimmer Katherine Rawls diving through the bull’s-eye of a large canvas target and U. S. High-diving champion Ruth Jump flying through the air holding a bow & arrow in a “Diana Dive”.

What Photographer Powell’s photographs neglected to make clear to newspaper readers, who got from them the notion that U. S. fancy-diving was becoming fancier than ever, was what Diver Jump did with her weapons after being photographed with them. The bow & arrow were wired together. The click of the camera was Diver Jump’s signal to drop them. By no means a novelty, the “Diana Dive” was invented by Photographer Powell in 1932, when he had Diver Georgia Coleman perform it to publicize the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.