4 days ago
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Posted On: October 15th 2026, 02:30 am
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THE BEST OF KONA 🏊♀️ 🚴♀️ 🏃♂️
The IRONMAN World Champs is hands down the longest single day of coverage as a sports photographer. 4am to 4am you’re hauling scuba gear, long lenses, flying drones, riding on the back of a motorcycle while downloading and editing content documenting the world’s best long course triathletes. At the end of the day your body and brain are trashed and you say to that you never want to do that again. But the challenge of trying to capture the grit of these amazing athletes set against the raw beauty of the island keeps bringing me back year after year.
When I started covering Kona 26 years ago, we used to shoot for print magazine covers, spreads, and large ads. My first Kona I used only slide transparency film on assignment for #Allsport to shoot for the major race sponsors at the time: Ford, Timex, Gatorade and Powerbar and other commercial clients that paid well for good photography. But now we’ve shifted to these little screens in the palm of our hands, and unfortunately quick delivery and quantity is more important than quality. I really miss the larger format to share my work, as you loose alot when you compress 8000 pixels into a 1080 screen. Maybe someday in the near future we can go back to printing these big…
It’s a trip to think I’ve spent half my life shooting Kona, and you never know if it’s the last time you’ll do something until it is. So I am forever grateful being able to cover this amazing race, the inspirational athletes, and the Big Island that feels like a 2nd home. A lot has changed with this race and sport but a lot on the Big Island has remained the same.
Super thankful for being able to work with special colleagues at @ironmantri PR Team of @ryguylobato @liv_mcculla @craigheydon
Content Crew @sgodwinfilms @juliapolloreno
Marketing @petakbell @wovenendurance
Social Team @peixydonkey @aaronforthewyn
Drone Assist @jackspitser and the rest of the filmers and fotogs, Ops crew, and volunteers who are friends THANK YOU
📷 is done ✅
🎥 is next! 😵💫
#imwc #kona2026 #ironman #triathlon
The IRONMAN World Champs is hands down the longest single day of coverage as a sports photographer. 4am to 4am you’re hauling scuba gear, long lenses, flying drones, riding on the back of a motorcycle while downloading and editing content documenting the world’s best long course triathletes. At the end of the day your body and brain are trashed and you say to that you never want to do that again. But the challenge of trying to capture the grit of these amazing athletes set against the raw beauty of the island keeps bringing me back year after year.
When I started covering Kona 26 years ago, we used to shoot for print magazine covers, spreads, and large ads. My first Kona I used only slide transparency film on assignment for #Allsport to shoot for the major race sponsors at the time: Ford, Timex, Gatorade and Powerbar and other commercial clients that paid well for good photography. But now we’ve shifted to these little screens in the palm of our hands, and unfortunately quick delivery and quantity is more important than quality. I really miss the larger format to share my work, as you loose alot when you compress 8000 pixels into a 1080 screen. Maybe someday in the near future we can go back to printing these big…
It’s a trip to think I’ve spent half my life shooting Kona, and you never know if it’s the last time you’ll do something until it is. So I am forever grateful being able to cover this amazing race, the inspirational athletes, and the Big Island that feels like a 2nd home. A lot has changed with this race and sport but a lot on the Big Island has remained the same.
Super thankful for being able to work with special colleagues at @ironmantri PR Team of @ryguylobato @liv_mcculla @craigheydon
Content Crew @sgodwinfilms @juliapolloreno
Marketing @petakbell @wovenendurance
Social Team @peixydonkey @aaronforthewyn
Drone Assist @jackspitser and the rest of the filmers and fotogs, Ops crew, and volunteers who are friends THANK YOU
📷 is done ✅
🎥 is next! 😵💫
#imwc #kona2026 #ironman #triathlon
Comments (108)
2 days agoalainlr
So many phenomenal photos. Capturing one or two would be an accomplishment. Don’t know how you do it.
3 days ago_gordomartinez
We built a smarter way to track athletes during IRONMAN races: https://www.ironman-tracker.com/about
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