The dramatic rescue of American artistic swimmer Anita Alberez by her coach at the World Championships in Budapest was captured by AFP photographer Oli Scarf using an underwater robot camera developed by his colleague François-Xavier Morrit and turned into iconic images distributed around the world.
As is often the case, the drama came out of nowhere.
Alberz had just finished her solo exercise in the final, when Scarf felt something was wrong.
"I saw that Anita's coach, Andrea Puentes, jumped into the water, and I could see something dark at the bottom of the pool. I immediately knew what had happened, so I went straight back to the robot," the photographer said.
"She fell to the bottom of the pool. I used the robot to photograph her and the rescue when Andrea reached her and managed to follow them all the way to the surface."
Maybe he took about 100 pictures - with his colleague at the French news agency Peter Kohlami who took the rescue out of the water - before reducing the story to 10 pictures step by step.
"Once it happened I knew it was a big story, a big event. But we did not know what her condition was, so I waited before I sent the pictures," Oli said.
Alberz during the exercise, Photo: AFP
Shocked as he was, the next contestant was in the pool just moments later, and may have been forced to continue filming.
“When I took pictures in places where it was dangerous, mentally you are ready.
But the quick transition from photographing something that is as beautiful as artistic swimming - to photographing something close to someone who is seemingly losing his life was a shake-up.
I was shocked and a little shocked for a long time.
I'm still a little shocked.
I had a unique perspective on it.
Everyone else watched it out of the water, and I could see it quite clearly through this camera.
"Fortunately, Alberz recovered quickly and at the end of the competition we received a message that she was fine, so I thought I could send the photos," Oli added.
The images circulated around the world within minutes, and were captured by major media outlets.
They were five of the six most shared photos on Facebook in 24 hours.
He may not have cut any of the photos he took.
"I left the pictures pretty wide to show how isolated it is, so there was a sequence that shows all the elements."
The special camera used by Scarf, Photo: AFP
The use of underwater photography has become increasingly popular since François - Xavier Merritt of AFP began developing a robot camera at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Since then other media have arrived, but the AFP robot was the only one in the pool to photograph the event that gained worldwide exposure.
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