How old were you when you learned to swim—two, five, ten?

Many of the women in The Swimmers learned in their fifties and sixties, long after raising children, working full‑time jobs, or remarrying. In The Swimmers, the women of the Honeys and Bears Senior Synchronized Swim Club move through a pool lined with vintage mosaic tiles and tall windows. Some arrive with walkers or canes; a few rely on motorized wheelchairs. Most stride into the locker room, unpack their swim bags, and slip into the water with practiced ease.

Their average age is 75.

These women not only learned to swim—they came to love it. Many began for health reasons: failing knees, degenerative spines, neurological conditions. What started as therapy became liberation.

I began photographing the team in 2015 while studying at the International Centre of Photography in New York. I was drawn to them—women (and a few men) whose bodies carried decades of experience. As a 49-year-old student, I was surrounded by classmates who were 20-30 years younger. I often felt invisible. At the pool, it was different. More than once, I was mistaken for a new member. It startled me, but it also felt like kinship. Their bodies carried the kind of history I recognized in my own.

I started shooting from the pool deck. Some images worked; others didn’t. Eventually, with encouragement—and some fear for my equipment—I went underwater. Again, some images succeeded, many didn’t.

But the goal remained clear:
To show beauty and strength—not in spite of age, but because of it.
To show swimming as an act of resistance.

In their own words:

Mary E. Williams, 76, born in Savannah, Georgia, never swam as a child. “There was no pool for us to go to,” she says. She feared water so deeply she couldn’t look down when crossing bridges. At 60, awaiting knee replacement surgery, a naturopath suggested water aerobics. She clung to the pool’s edge during her first classes. Slowly, she ventured farther. She practiced alone, inching toward the deep end. “I used to lay out in the water and look up, like I’m looking into the universe, and I’d pray to God to help me overcome my fear.” Today, that fear is gone. “It is such a wonderful feeling when you are in the water. You feel like you can do anything.”

Lillian Phillips, 84, a retired nurse from Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in the 1940s. “Girls were not allowed to swim,” she says. Boys had a mud hole; girls stayed out. Even after moving to New York, swimming was discouraged—straightened hair couldn’t survive the pool. Instead, she ran for decades, until her knees weakened. Swimming became her backup plan, then her lifeline. “I love the water. It’s therapeutic. Whenever we go on vacation, I try to get in the pool. It’s a whole other experience.” She plans to swim “as long as I’m alive.”