He documents his greatest passion and uploads it to Wikimedia Commons

Zafer, a member of the Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey, has been a volunteer contributing to Wikimedia projects since 2007; he is also a fan of Fenerbahçe and an enthusiastic basketball fan. He brought all these interests together: he started photographing players at the games he attended and sharing the photos he took on Wikimedia Commons. What began as a small personal initiative a few years ago has now grown into an increasingly comprehensive archival project.

Zafer’s story began in the audience seats, taking photos with his mobile phone. However, today with press accreditations from clubs such as Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş, Anadolu Efes, Bahçeşehir Koleji, and FIBA, he works right next to the basket hoop with professional equipment. He photographs a game almost every day of the week, and isn’t complaining about the busy schedule at all; because he is photographing his greatest passion, basketball, and uploading the photos to Wikimedia Commons with free licenses, categorizing them in detail.

In his presentation at the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025 held in Thessaloniki, he described how this journey began as follows:

“In 2016, I photographed two games I went to watch (Fenerbahçe Beko vs. KK Cedevita Zagreb and Fenerbahçe Beko vs. Darüşşafaka Spor Kulübü) with my mobile phone and obtained nearly 100 images of poor quality. I went to three games during the 2016–17 season and had the opportunity to take over 200 photos with both my phone and camera. However, during the 2017–18 season, I photographed a total of 38 matches by purchasing a seasonal ticket and uploaded these photos to Wikimedia Commons.”

He continued taking photos without a break. Before the 2018–19 season, he had the opportunity to attend Fenerbahçe’s media day event and uploaded photos of many people, from players to the technical staff, to Commons.

He continued his work after the COVID-19 pandemic and participated in the Beşiktaş basketball team’s media day event for the first time. During this period, he was taking photos with a camera instead of a mobile phone.

And that’s where the magic begins. While he continued taking photos from the audience seats with his season tickets until the 2024 FIBA Europe SuperCup Women game, he received his first accreditation for this game and continued his photography activity right next to the players, at court level. However, this start was not very productive, because the match was suspended in the 2nd minute due to crowd disturbances, and the next day, due to a business trip, he missed the opportunity to photograph the entire match and the cup ceremony.

Following this game, Zafer stated that he uploaded over 14,000 photos from more than 120 games during the 2024-25 season in Turkey with his accreditations. He added that he also had the opportunity to participate in the FIBA EuroBasket Women 2025 and 2025 Basketball Champions League Final Four events with FIBA accreditation. Taking and uploading photos of the cup ceremonies was the most enjoyable part for him.

Zafer emphasizes that he has now joined Wikiportraits, created by fellow photography enthusiasts who are Wikimedia users, and that he has learned a great deal through his ongoing communication with other participants. He states that he feels great joy and motivation from being part of this project through his contributions.

If you want to browse the matches Zafer has photographed, you can spend hours, even days, exploring the categories he has created.