ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes

29 December, 2019

Tommy Zaferes (pronounced zah-fear-es) just finished his third full season as part of the ITU Media Team. Zaferes swam at the USA Olympic trials in 2008, took a year leave from sport, and began his ITU career in 2010. While he still travels and trains full time with his wife, WTS star Katie Zaferes (and occasionally races himself), his main focus has shifted into the sports photography and content creation world.

In 2017 Zaferes spent his first season “interning” with the other ITU photographers, and helping to provide athletes with content to showcase themselves (and triathlon) to the world.

Zaferes explains his style as "story telling”. He enjoys the challenge of capturing an individual image, from a unique perspective, that makes the viewer feel like they're are experiencing the moment in real life. And also the challenge of getting an image that no one else could get.

Here is a collection of 10 photos that Zaferes has selected to showcase from the 2019 season. Enjoy the gallery and make sure to see his past, present and future work shared on the @worldtriathlon social media channels and follow Zaferes on Instagram and twitter @TZaferes.

ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
In the middle of WTS Montreal, Gustav Iden got his chain jammed. Because he was off the back a bit I wasn’t expecting him to be coming after the group already went by, and I was actually in the middle of moving to a new shooting location and about to change camera settings, but I saw him coming at the last second and quickly snapped a few frames as he went by. When I looked at the pictures afterwards I was like “what in the world??” I couldn’t believe I happened to be in the right spot and randomly chosen an awesome angle) to be able to capture this moment.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
This year I finally got a “Dome” for my GoPro. This allows the camera to capture both underwater and above water in a single image. The dome is cool, but it’s challenging to swim with, and to get to proper angle to have half/half split image without having any water drops on the glass that distort the image. Also, the water has to be very clear and it has to be a nice sunny day (so underwater isn’t too dark) for best results. During a very hectic grand final week in Lausanne, Switzerland, I was happy to be able to get into the water and get this shot of Flora Duffy during the Elite Swim Course familiarization.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
This image is a little hard to appreciate without seeing photos of how it was taken (if you go to my Instagram story highlights under “The Process” I have a full explanation with behind the scenes photos if you’re interested). But Basically there was a giant cement barricade blocking off a broken sidewalk with a small drainage hole about 10cm diameter and 3m long. This broken sidewalk was along a pretty high cliff, and I ended up having to lie down just along the edge of the cliff to get the angle to be able to shoot through the hole in a way that I could get the athletes on their bikes. I also had to move a cone slightly, a rock and some spider webs that were initially in the way. Needless to say, I was very happy to get the shot I was going for first try.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
In Abu Dhabi it’s really challenging to get a lot of different places on the course since it’s a sprint distance race. Also, the course is all on a F1 track so it’s really hard to think of new ideas that haven’t been shot already. During the team relay there is even less of a chance to venture around on course to get original imagery, but I was able to make it down to the tunnel, get this shot after a few attempts, and then continue on in a timely manner to cover the rest of the race.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
In Yokohama there is one part of the course where the athletes go under a giant circular walking bridge. There are places where you can look through all the beams, but there is only one of the larger “openings” that is directly over the bike course. The hardest part about this shot is that you can’t see (or hear) any of the athletes coming, and you are not guaranteed that they will ride directly below you on that very specific part of the street where you can see them through the beam opening. I can’t spend to much time in one spot during races, but I really wanted to get this shot, so after multiple failed attempts, I was ready to move on, but I felt the need to try one more time. I waited up there for another lap and was extremely happy to get the shot on the very next pass.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
Whenever I walk through transition I am always looking for unique ideas. In Edmonton I saw a bike in transition that had it’s wheel turned parallel to how the athletes ride (normally when bikes are racked in transition the wheels are perpendicular). When I saw this I was like “okay, this is a team relay, so a few tries here and then I need to move on if I don’t get the shot.” It’s a challenge because it’s not up to me where the athlete will choose to ride through Transition. If the athletes would ride to close to me then they don’t fit in the wheel, so they need to be on the opposite side of me riding through the transition zone, and then I have the challenge of getting them in focus while shooting through the wheel past all the spokes. All the stars aligned for me and I was able to get the shot in a timely manner.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
When you see still images is hard to understand how quickly that moment actually happened. I really enjoy looking at my images and then watching the TriathlonLive.TV coverage afterwards and being really proud of moments I was able to capture when I see how fast it occurred in real time. Getting a cool team relay tag is always a fun challenge because a lot of times there are multiple athletes coming in at once, when they tag off their hands move so fast you have to really be on your game to catch it in focus. Another challenge is that because of TV coverage, and doing my absolute best to not be in the way of the athletes setting up, this type of shot is super hard.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
In the ParaTri VI categories each athlete and their guide have different tactics in how they approach the “guiding” portion of the run. When I saw the Ukrainians actually run with their hands holding a band together I immediately knew I had to get an up close shot of this. This photo imay not seem like anything super special, but if you go out and try to take a sharp photo of someone’s hands while they are running full speed you’ll soon realize its not as easy as it may seem. I was very nervous trying to get this shot as they only passed where I was standing twice. I missed the shot the first time, but just before they passed me for the second time I was able to secure another favorite image for the year.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
This picture was taken in Tokyo and I got REALLY lucky I was able to get it. For this image to happen, a couple things had to fall into place: It had to be an athlete with a prosthetic leg and the athlete’s stride had to land in the sun spot... and of course I had to capture it. While this doesn’t seem like too much criteria, the unfortunate part was that the sunlight square was in the middle of the road and because all of the athletes were running the shortest line (which was the side of the road) no one was stepping in the light. I waited in the same spot for about 5 min and was abut to give up when I saw an athlete coming who was going to have to pass another athlete. Because he was passing, he had to step off his line for a bit and run in the middle of the road for a few strides to make the pass, so for just a single moment, he stepped into the middle of the road and his stride hit the sun square perfectly. I felt good about when I hit the shutter, but it wasn’t until I looked at my camera afterwards that I breathed a huge sigh of relief/ joy.
ITU Photographer’s Best of 2019 Gallery: Tommy Zaferes
It was very hot and humid in Tokyo this year so everyone was hitting every aid station. Because this incredible athlete doesn’t have arms, all the aid station volunteers literally throw water all over him as he runs by. Sometimes it’s to cool him down, and sometimes when he runs through he opens his mouth to drink. It was such an amazing thing to witness and I happened to be at the aid station when he was coming through on the final lap.
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