New York's open water is not just the Hudson at sunset. It hosts a full triathlon down the West Side Highway, a Brooklyn open water swim club that trains off Brighton Beach, and a 28.5-mile swim around the entire island of Manhattan that ranks alongside the English Channel as one of open water swimming's toughest challenges.
Big Apple Triathlon
The Big Apple Triathlon runs each October, with the 2026 edition set for Saturday, October 10. The course opens with a 1500-meter swim in the Hudson River, moves to a bike leg on the West Side Highway ranging from 12.4 to 24.8 miles depending on the race format, and finishes with a run into Central Park. The field caps at 2,500 athletes across sprint, Olympic, relay and duathlon formats, which means three completely different disciplines, and three completely different photo opportunities, in a single morning.
CIBBOWS at Brighton Beach
Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers, known as CIBBOWS, is a nonprofit community for open water swimmers of every level, based out of Brighton 4th Street in Brooklyn. It runs a full calendar of open water events and training swims through the season, giving a photographer a standing, repeatable subject at one beach rather than chasing a single annual race.
20 Bridges Swim Around Manhattan
The 20 Bridges Swim covers 28.5 miles counter-clockwise around the entire island of Manhattan, passing under 20 bridges across the East River, the Harlem River and the Hudson, with the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building skyline and the George Washington Bridge all visible along the route. It runs across eight scheduling windows between June and October each year and sits alongside the English Channel and the Catalina Channel as part of open water swimming's Triple Crown. This is the rarest and most demanding subject on this list, and also one of the most visually distinctive swims in the world to document from a boat, a bridge or the shoreline.
Why this category shoots differently
A triathlon or open water swim splits into segments that each need a different approach. The swim leg is the hardest to reach, usually shot from a pier, a bridge or a boat rather than from the water's edge. The bike and run legs behave like any other race, with choke points and finish lines that reward a fixed position. Photographing the swim start or finish, where dozens of athletes enter or exit the water at once, tends to produce the most dramatic and most in-demand frames of the day.
Selling what you shoot
A triathlon or open water swim produces the same fragmented buyer problem as any large race: athletes who want proof from a discipline they cannot photograph themselves mid-race. Upload the session to Surf Snaps and it becomes a watermarked, shoppable gallery that athletes can search for by sport, location and date, so someone who swam the Hudson leg of the Big Apple Triathlon can find themselves without ever knowing your name. You keep 90 percent of every sale, paid monthly by bank transfer, and you keep the copyright to every file. The mechanics are on the how it works page, and the fee details are on the FAQ. For more on which NYC races are worth building a shoot around, see best NYC races to shoot for photographers looking to sell race photos.
One small step
If the Big Apple Triathlon fits your October, plan now for one fixed position on the run or bike leg rather than trying to cover the whole course. If you want a standing beat instead, reach out to CIBBOWS about shooting a training swim at Brighton Beach this season.
