Fifa world cup qatar 2022
50 days to go (as of the 1st October) So feels like a great time to document the final countdown to the big kick off.
What is Qatar Like?
Do you have to cover your hair?
What games are you going to?
Can you drink?
Can I crash in your spare room to the World Cup?
Are you allowed to drive?
Have you seen David Beckham hanging out at his favourite spice market?
So many questions about the country that I have chosen to make my home with my family.
Some are easy to answer.
No I don't have to cover my hair.
Yes women can drive.
Yes I can drink (ideally not at the same time as driving).
Absolutely! You can crash in my spare room if you want.
No. I haven't seen Becks yet. But there is time...
What is Qatar like? Is less easy to pin down.
Qatar is brilliant & frustrating & wonderful & mind-boglingly bureaucratic.
There is no denying the fact the the stadiums & the infrastructure developments are world leading & mightily impressive.
There is also no denying the fact that this has come at a cost to many for the benefit to a relative few.
I LOVE Qatar & recognise I am in a privileged position to be here with my family, yet that privilege highlights the inequality I see in those that work here and can't have their families with them.
I read the Guardian daily yet get annoyed when I read an article sniffily describing one of my favourite beaches as a "run down seaside resort".
Qatar is home to some of the fiercest, most driven, funniest women I have ever met. Yet I still witness things what my Mancunian feminist beliefs sees as unfathomable.
50 images for 50 days
So I have decided to do what I do & document the next 50 days right up to the kick off.
Some images will be shiny & "on message" because there is a lot of shiny & amazing stuff to see.
Some images will be hyper local and domestic because while I'm a professional photographer I'm also a mum & a friend & a wife & a Qatari resident.
All images will be a real document of life in a country the whole world is watching.
The aim is for the images to give a real window into Qatar & answer some questions.
Or even better make you want to visit to find out more for yourself.