I took a 95-year-old camera to the World Cup. Everyone thought I was crazy.
Sports photographer Fareed Kotb documents the World Cup using a 1930 Zeiss Ikon camera to create a historical connection to the tournament's origins. The project highlights the technical challenges and deliberate pace of analog photography compared to modern digital workflows.
Why it matters
It explores the intersection of historical technology and modern sports journalism, emphasizing the value of intentionality in creative work.
Fareed Kotb is documenting the World Cup with a camera from 1930. Courtesy of Fareed Kotb Fareed Kotb is a 39-year-old sports photographer who lives in Cairo. He was a photographer at the last two World Cups, and this year, he wanted to try something different. He bought a camera made in 1930 and took a slow approach to photographing two World Cup games. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Fareed Kotb . It has been edited for length and clarity. After photographing two World Cups in Russia and Qatar, I wanted my third to be different. I somehow wanted to connect to the first World Cup in 1930, nearly 100 years ago, and decided to do this; I would take photographs with a camera made in 1930. I bought a 1930s camera in Cairo In Cairo, we have a market for vintage cameras .
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