FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

Short Story…

Going to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was a dream come true.

I spent a total of 16 days in Qatar and was lucky to attend 9 matches during this time.

Although the plan was to watch some amazing football and spend some time with my brother & my friends, my main goal always had something to do with Photography. The fact that I was attending one of the biggest sporting events in the world, at quite a controversial location was not lost on me. People from across the globe, all tightly packed into such a small & relatively conservative country was very photographically enticing. So, 2 days before my flight, I bought myself a used Fujifilm X-T4, and a couple of used Fujinon Lenses, I packed my Fujifilm X-T20 as well and set off. I managed to capture thousands of photographs, but as any amateur photographer would know, you only get a few hundred usable photos out of it.

The FIFA World Cup in Qatar proved to be more amazing than I had expected. The quality of the stadiums and the overall organization of the event far exceeded my expectations. Having never attended any other World Cup, I had nothing to compare it to, but I think it will be a long time before any other host country does it better than Qatar.

I have hundreds of compliments that I could throw at Qatar, but that’s not what you are here for, so let’s get on with it.

My goals were to capture certain kinds of images:-

Street Photography (happy people in the streets waving flags)
Stadiums & Architecture (they invested some 200 billion USD so that I could do this, might as well)
Fans (they are half the fun of this whole thing)
Players (this was always going to be a bit more difficult)
Qatar & Doha City (because why not)
Family & Friends (when you have a good camera this step becomes almost mandatory)