After more than a month of drama, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is finally heading into its finale, with the last games set for this weekend. Over the course of the tournament, a small army of photographers has been crisscrossing stadiums to keep pace with the matches and the stories unfolding around them.

One of them is Maddie Meyer, a Getty Images staff photographer who has spent this World Cup on the touchline and in the stands, documenting everything from tunnel nerves to wild celebrations. Meyer took the time to speak with me between matches, sharing insights into what it’s like to cover such an event and how she stays on top of her game.

Finding her way

Getty Images

While Meyer was always interested in photography, she didn’t start out wanting to be a sports photographer. She grew up in Washington, D.C., playing soccer and thinking she would follow the path of Doug Mills, a prominent New York Times photographer she’d known since childhood. “I’ve known him since I was 8, and I looked up to him so much,” she said. “I remember his pictures from the Torino Olympics and thinking this might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Meyer recognizes that having Mills to look up to early on was quite important for her path. “It was so cool to have somebody in my life so early to show me this is a job you can have,” she told me. “He was super encouraging; he said the only difference between me and you is I’ve worked hard at this for 40 more years.” Meyer kept shooting through middle and high school and went on to study photojournalism at Ohio University.

She still thought she wanted to be a White House photographer until she started working with her college athletics department and realized how much she loved traveling with teams and being outside. That led her to apply for a Getty Sport internship in New York City, which quickly felt like the right fit. “I loved the pace and the scale and the intensity of it. After I graduated from college, I got hired in Boston in 2015. I have been here ever since, and I still love it,” she said.

Managing the chaos

Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

At this point in her career, Meyer is no stranger to long days and constant travel, but this World Cup has been especially demanding, with matches held in 16 cities across 3 countries. Group play was the most intense stretch, with 50 Getty editorial photographers bouncing between host cities to cover 72 group‑stage matches. “We were traveling the day of sometimes, so it was like, wake up, take a flight, check into the hotel, head to the stadium,” said Meyer.

Once she’s at the venue, the workday around a single match stretches to roughly 10 hours. Meyer said that the Getty team at a game (generally two to three photographers during group play) typically arrives about five hours before kickoff. They start by setting up remote cameras behind the goals and photographing the dressing rooms. When the teams arrive, the atmosphere shifts quickly. “Some of the African teams come and actually sing down the tunnels and the hallways with drums, which is really cool,” she described. “So I love that right off the bat, sometimes you get a really interesting cultural taste right away.”

From there, Meyer follows the team as they walk the pitch and go through their warmups, then moves into one of her favorite moments: the tunnel. “What I really like is getting access into the tunnel, where there aren’t other photographers, so to me, those are some of the more genuine moments that we see of these athletes before they step out and see these tens of thousands of people,” she said.

After the final whistle, one member of the crew typically goes out on the pitch with a steadicam. “I really love getting closer to those players, whether it’s the celebration, the dejection, it feels a little bit more intimate than using those really long lenses to photograph the action,” she said. They wrap up the day by capturing the press conferences and packing up before heading to the next city.

The long hours and frequent travel can wear anyone down, so Meyer leans on small rituals to keep herself steady. including bringing small things from home and making time for movement. She likes to bring a few comforts from home and find regularity where she can. “I love having my good-smelling soaps in the shower, little things that make me feel like I’m not just sitting in the rain in my raincoat all the time,” she explained. “I also always try to get some sort of exercise in, either walking or in the gym, just kind of moving my body, because most of the time, we’re kind of curled up in these weird positions.”

She also explained that sleep is non-negotiable. “I really believe I can do anything in the world if I have 8 hours of sleep,” she said. “I tell my colleagues, too, listen, if we’re not sleeping and we’re running between places, let’s be really gentle with each other the best we can, because we’re running on fumes sometimes.”

What goes on behind-the-scenes

Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

Meyer and her teammates certainly have their hands full during an event. She told me that she typically has four cameras in action during World Cup matches: one remote camera behind the goal, and three on her. She usually fits those handheld cameras with a 400mm lens, a 70-200mm, and, depending on her placement, something wide-angle to catch close action. Across the team, there are multiple remotes behind each net, all positioned to cover key moments around the goals.

Before kickoff, Meyer sets up the remote camera’s exposure and focus, making sure it’s ready for action near the net. She explained that the remote cameras behind the goals are hardwired, as there’s far too much interference to rely on wireless connections during matches. It is still manually triggered, either by remote editors or by someone nearby using a foot pedal.

From the opening match on June 11 to the final on July 19, the Getty Images team will have shot more than 2.6 million images. Thankfully, the photographers aren’t working alone. The Getty Images FIFA World Cup team consists of 115 people, including 20 editors in New York who help oversee operations and are ready to receive images as they come in.

“They have a diagram of where everybody is. So after a goal is scored, they’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s in Maddie’s corner, take a look at what she’s sending us.’ So they’re able to prioritize whose work they want to look at to get those pictures out quickest,” Meyer explained. She works under a “tag and send workflow,” meaning she looks through and sends pictures that she wants the editors to see, often within seconds of something happening.

The remote cameras are handled differently. Those are set to send all of the images to New York as soon as the cameras fire. Once the editors have the photos, they crop, tone, caption and send the pictures out for use. A Getty Images representative told me that they can have photos ready within 30 seconds of capture, often before television replays are available.

Meyer explained that the current process is vastly improved from when she first started. “In 2015, I photographed the Women’s World Cup, and it was self-edit, so I had my laptop out on the sideline, and it was super challenging,” she explained. “Versus now, it’s just such a win for everybody. The editing team does a way better job than me out in the sun, squinting into my laptop. And also, I’m able to shoot more and really focus on the game.”

Staying prepared

Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

With so much happening around each match, Meyer tries to go in as prepared as possible. “I think it’s always great to understand the key players and some of the storylines,” she said, noting that her European colleagues have been especially helpful since they see many of these players regularly and can flag people to keep an eye on.

More than scouting, though, Meyer focuses on her particular location for the match. “We’re assigned where we’re shooting, and so I really think about the backgrounds, how the game is gonna kinda flow,” she said. She went on to explain that she’s also very intentional about which moments are hers to photograph, versus ones that are better for her colleagues to capture. “I really think this is my little piece of the pie, this portion of the field,” Meyer said. “I’m gonna really think about what lenses show off what’s going on here.”

Meyer said she also thinks about her mom a lot when photographing. “She’s a big Maddie fan, but not a big sports fan,” she said. “And I always think, what would I tell her about today? What makes this different? What makes this interesting? What makes this special?” She uses that mindset to make sure she’s telling the bigger story, making it interesting for more than just die-hard soccer fans.

Another challenge Meyer faces is making her pictures feel distinctive. “Sometimes the photos do end up looking the same as the person sitting next to you,” she explained. “I try to think about lens choices – can I shoot really wide to show atmosphere? Tight to show details or faces? A very shallow depth of field to highlight the action? That can be where the difference comes into play when our position can’t be unique.”

A favorite moment on the world stage

Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

As the 2026 World Cup nears its end, Meyer doesn’t hesitate when asked about a favorite moment from the tournament: the Egypt–Argentina match. She was roaming rather than in an assigned spot on the touchline, which she said presents a fun challenge, since she can go anywhere and doesn’t have set compositions and backgrounds in mind as she does otherwise.

There had been lots of back and forth, but Egypt was up towards the end. She got a message saying they would have access to the Egypt locker room, asking whether she would go in with them if they won. “I was like, okay, do I leave before the match is over to wait outside their locker room, or do I stay up a little bit longer?” she recalled. Then, Argentina scored, and she decided to go with the Argentina fans and figure out how to get to the locker room later if she had to.

“The Argentina fans are incredible,” she said. “These people are so passionate. They travel so well. They have the instruments. They’re just out of their minds in the best way that you want to see.” She also told me that she loves how much they want everyone involved, and they are not shy about having a photographer in their midst.

“They ended up winning, crying, shirts off, screaming, and I have all these pictures with a 15mm, and all these people, it’s like, babies, old men, young people, and that was super memorable to me, of just kind of being in that chaos,” she said. “Being on the pitch, it feels pretty high pressure as a photographer, but up there, I was like, I’m in this. And they’re like, ‘Get in here, sister!’ I’m like, okay, I’m not celebrating. I’m gonna photograph you celebrating. One of the guys took my phone and was like, ‘I’m taking pictures of you!’ It was just, like, the rails have come off up here.”

For Meyer, that moment captures a lot of what makes the World Cup special. “What I think is so fun about the World Cup is just how passionate these people are, and getting to be maybe a little bit too close to them even was great,” she told me.

Beyond the World Cup: why the small games matter

Maddie Meyer – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

While Meyer is photographing on the big stage these days, she is quick to stress that professional events aren’t the end-all, be-all. “Even though I love being at the World Cup, it’s not all about the World Cup,” she said. “There’s so much joy, and sometimes, frankly, better pictures in the smaller events, in the high school, in the college, in the MLS, NWSL, all those types of things.”

It’s a good reminder that although big events like this get most of the spotlight, smaller events are important, too. “As much as I love it, and I love talking about it, I never want people to leave talking with me, thinking it’s this or nothing, because there’s a picture to be made at every single level,” Meyer said.

You can see more of Meyer’s work on her Instagram or through Getty Images.

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Capture One has built its reputation as the professional standard for commercial and beauty photographers thanks to its precise color management and tethering tools. But the company is also in the midst of an expansion, adding tools for new types of photographers, from photojournalists to those working with film.

We sat down with CEO Rafael Orta to talk about what that growth looks like, how the company approaches AI, and how it differentiates itself from other editing platforms.

Who it’s for

Capture One

While some editing platforms aim to serve everyone, Capture One is intentionally more narrow in its scope. Orta is clear about who the company builds for: photographers who have made photography their career choice, whether as a primary income source or a serious secondary one.

The professional lens shapes everything from feature priorities to how the company talks about its product. Capture One is often considered the commercial standard for beauty and product photography, but Orta says it has deliberately expanded into professional portrait, wedding and family photography in recent years as well. It’s also seen lots of growth in its enterprise segment, with the Associated Press coming on as its first photojournalism client last year.

The key is that all of these are genres where client relationships and deadlines can define the work. “We have a really good understanding of how photographers work with clients, work under deadlines and how clients are the ultimate judge of your work,” Orta says. “It’s a tool that has been built with professional standards in mind.”

AI on its terms

There’s no getting around the fact that AI is everywhere these days, and it’s reshaping many aspects of the photography software market. But Orta is careful about how Capture One positions itself within that shift, and it comes down to trust in the company’s identity. “We are not confused about who we are,” he says. “We are a photography company first, not a software company that happens to serve photographers.”

That identity, according to Orta, is what allows the company to incorporate AI responsibly. He tells me that Capture One owns more cameras than it has employees and that many of the photos on its website and in its marketing are taken by Capture One team members, who are photographers. “We are incredibly protective of usage rights; even in internal presentations, you need to credit the photographer,” he explains. The company also runs a monthly internal photography competition with winning images adorning the walls of their offices.

Orta explains all of this to make it clear that AI tools in Capture One are built by people who take photography seriously; they aren’t added simply to keep pace with competitors. “It’s why we’ve been able to bring AI into Capture One without the backlash others have faced,” he says. “We built it as a participant in the industry, not an operator standing outside it looking in,” he says.

A pulse on the community

Earlier this year, Capture One released a negative film conversion feature. While this could seem like an odd move for an editing platform dedicated to commercial work, Orta sees it as the perfect example of how in-tune with the industry the company is.

“It’s the perfect example of our connectivity in the industry,” Orta says. “We saw early on that there was a resurgence of film photography, and it quickly began to enter the commercial space.” He explains that they want to offer a better way for commercial photographers to integrate all their work into a single platform. Doing so enables photographers to maintain a more consistent workflow and create a more coherent look across both film and digital.

Orta is also clear about how intentional the company is with new features and the work involved in creating those. “We are soaking in the industry, and we listen and respond to the requests,” he says. “But because we’re precious about quality, some of these things may take a bit of time. We spent the best part of two years on negative conversion to make sure the results would be good.”

As an example of how dedicated the team is to its new features, Orta tells me that a few weeks ago, the company held its annual gathering and handed out disposable film cameras to everyone there. Now, the employees are using the negative conversion tool to scan in their own negatives. It’s another example of the team getting real-world experience with the features they develop.

Pricing adjustments

Capture One

Capture One has never been the cheapest option for photographers, and recent pricing increases have made that especially true. The editing platform has raised its prices twice in recent years, and another 6% increase took effect this month. The new price is more than double the cost of Adobe’s Lightroom, a gap that is certainly hard to ignore.

Orta doesn’t shy away from the pricing question, though. “What we have committed to is yearly pricing increases, and we will do them in a modest way,” he says. As for the why, Orta simply cites inflation and foreign exchange as factors in the decision.

Naturally, he points to what subscribers get in return. Orta says that Capture One has been pushing more than one update per month to at least one of its platforms, bringing a constant stream of improvements. He explains that these include server-side updates to things like its collaboration tools (Live, Live for Studio) and admin platform, not just desktop and mobile app updates. Some of these updates are visible to a user, while others aren’t. He adds that the company has simplified its product lineup in recent years to make pricing tiers clearer. Overall, Orta frames the increases less as a burden and more as a reflection of ongoing investment in the product.

A clear vision for the future

For Orta, all of Capture One’s recent changes, including the newly added Hasselblad support, point in the same direction: a company that’s clear on who it is and who it’s building for. “We try to serve specific genres and build products and services that are perfectly adapted to the needs of each one,” he says. For a company with its roots in commercial studios, that’s a wider net than it used to be, but it doesn’t mean that the focus is any less intentional.

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Stuart Palley

When Stuart Palley began photographing California wildfires in 2013, the data already pointed toward more serious wildfire problems ahead. Over the next 13 years and nearly 200 fires, he watched that prediction come true. Fire seasons grew longer, fires burned faster and more aggressively, and January 2025 brought an inferno to the hills of Los Angeles at a time of year that usually felt like a safe time.

Through all of it, Palley has been there with a camera, building a visual record of the American West’s fire crisis. I had the opportunity to chat with him about his journey capturing wildfires, the toll it takes and Terra Flamma, his current ongoing series dedicated to a fresh perspective.

Fire as light

Stuart Palley

While Palley is still very focused on the journalistic side of his photography, his Terra Flamma series blends the boundaries between documentary and fine art. The project involves using long exposures to photograph fires at night, and Palley was drawn to making these images in part because of the colors they allow.

Palley explained that he frequently thinks about a quote from Vincent van Gogh, who said, “I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” Van Gogh’s paintings, like “The Starry Night ,” were direct inspiration for Palley’s fire-lit nightscapes. “That use of color and night scenes just always stuck with me from growing up, and I just loved access to the color palette that wasn’t otherwise available,” he said.

Stuart Palley

The images grasp onto that idea, showcasing landscapes in a manner we don’t often see. “Fire is its own light source, and it bathes everything in this warm light,” Palley explained. “When you add in smoke and other geographic features, it can either be an enormous warm softbox, or it can paint everything in orange and red, and then contrast it against a more blue or purple night sky. So it creates this incredible color palette that is only available when the fires are happening.”

Terra Flamma isn’t just about color, though. The long exposures give you a different look at the fire’s behavior, too. “You see what it’s doing, you see where the smoke’s going, and it sort of illuminates the scene,” said Palley. The long exposures also showcase the landscape, providing a bigger view of the situation. “Ultimately, the goal of Terra Flamma is to take these landscape photos of fire and put them in the context of where they are,” he said. “Is this happening in the mountains in the middle of nowhere? Is it happening near downtown LA?”

Stuart Palley

Palley has also expanded the series to include stories beyond the fire itself, including firefighters, crews, communities, air quality, forestry management and more. “The fire has become part of a broader ecosystem when it comes to storytelling about climate and natural disasters here in the American West,” he told me.

While Terra Flamma occupies the fine art end of his work, it represents only part of what Palley does at a fire. During the day, he’s working as a photojournalist documenting firefighters, crews and affected communities with the same immediacy as any news photographer. The long-exposure landscapes come when the sun dips down.

Putting gear in the line of fire

Stuart Palley

Of course, long exposures create logistical challenges that daytime images don’t. Fires are dynamic and can change rapidly, and setting up for a long exposure requires time. Thankfully, most of his long exposures give him the benefit of distance as a safety buffer. “A lot of times when I’m doing these longer landscape exposures, it’s from further back, looking at the fire in context across a canyon or down a hill,” he said. “So, I typically have some space built in that gives me both geographic safety and the time to make these images.”

That’s not always the case, though. Palley remembered one image in particular where he was much closer to the fire, with a 30-second exposure capturing embers swirling around him. “I had to stand there holding my camera in the wind, getting pelted by embers,” Palley said. “I’ve got like a hood, a helmet, goggles and all this stuff. So, I was fine. But I decided at that point that it was worth making that picture because it showed the ember cast in such a wild way that it was worth sitting there for the 30-second exposure.”

Stuart Palley

Thankfully, fires haven’t been the direct cause of damage to Palley’s gear. “I’ve certainly damaged and destroyed multiple cameras at these fires, but it’s not necessarily from negligence,” he said. He recalled one time in 2015 when he dropped his camera after getting attacked by a displaced beehive because they were attracted to his yellow Nomex suit. Another time, he melted a lens hood because it fell into burning grass.

The most common issue, he says, is smoke. “The cameras smell like ashtrays,” he said. “You get smoke and ashes on it, but you get alcohol wipes, and you wipe the cameras down every day to reduce smoke exposure and things like that.” He also sends them off yearly for a cleaning to maintain his gear. “But ultimately, it’s a tool and tools used in challenging conditions just often need more maintenance,” he explained.

Training is key

Stuart Palley

While Palley, of course, wants to create incredible photographs, he draws a clear line. “The key thing here is no photo is worth me getting hurt or getting in the way of firefighters,” he said. He’s always putting his safety and the job of firefighters first.

That focus on safety has only increased over the years, too, as fires have become more intense. “I’ve always been safety oriented, but I’m very, very conservative now on how I approach these fires because the fire behavior is so extreme,” he said. “From having been at almost 200 wildfires at this point, the fire behavior continues to surprise me with how aggressive and rapid it is.”

Stuart Palley

Palley’s safety record is no accident. Since early on in his career, he has devoted a lot of time to making sure he is well-trained, knowledgeable about fires and has the right gear. “When I first started photographing fires, I had basic Nomex PPE, but the boots didn’t quite fit right. I didn’t have the right fire shelter,” he told me. “So within the first year, I went to a private wildland fire school for a week to get my general wildland firefighter training.”

He’s also careful to continually update his gear so that it meets current standards. For example, he recently purchased a $3000 radio because many agencies have updated their radios, and he needs an easy way to listen to what’s going on to stay safe and out of firefighters’ way. “When I’m at fires, I want to be there to tell the story, not become part of it,” he said.

Stuart Palley

Palley has also started sharing his knowledge with others. He recently led a two-day wildfire media safety course for 20 Reuters staffers and freelancers. “It’s a blend of some very general wildland fire behavior and training that’s standardized for firefighters, but it’s sort of customized in a curriculum I just developed to teach journalists,” he explained. That information can then help other journalists stay safe, while producing informative coverage of these events.

That directness extends to how he talks about irresponsible coverage more broadly. Palley is a genuine believer in the democratization of media and is all for more people covering these events. But he has little patience for journalists or creators who treat dangerous situations carelessly. “When I’ve seen so many extreme fires, fatality fires, homes burn down, I don’t have time to sugarcoat these explanations,” he said. “Sometimes you have to just be direct and tell people to get their shit together. This is serious stuff happening. It needs to be taken seriously.”

Building trust and the ethics of wildfire photojournalism

Stuart Palley

Trust is also a factor when photographing these fires. Palley is often working in the vicinity of firefighters, and they need to know that he’s not a liability and that they can trust him to be responsible and safe. “If you’re a journalist there, to a wildland firefighter, you’re the X-factor,” he said. “Trust is one of the biggest things, and that’s the reason why I’m big on having the right gear and the training and knowing how to use it.”

Trust extends beyond wildland firefighters and safety crews, too. Palley often photographs communities when people return to their homes after fires, a traumatic and emotional experience. “When you’re photographing people on the worst day of their lives or the most stressful day of their lives, sometimes they don’t want that to be photographed,” he described.

“I want to respect the dignity that people deserve in these situations and build that trust,” Palley said. Because of that, he gives people space when requested, moving on to other areas and photographs. “To me, that’s more important than making that picture,” he told me.

The cost of the work

Stuart Palley

Palley considered conflict photography early in his career before deciding against it, in part because of the mental health toll he knew it could take. The irony is that wildfire photography has its own cost.

“Journalists deal with vicarious trauma, and if it’s not treated, it essentially develops into PTSD,” he said. He’s clear about what the work actually demands. “When these fires happen, you’re working 16, 18-hour days on assignment. It’s just very intense,” he said. “The human body and mind are not designed for that level of stimulation for that amount of time.”

There’s been a growing movement in both journalism and the firefighting world to acknowledge this, and Palley learned it firsthand. In 2023, he was feeling the burnout and stepped back from photographing fires for about a year.

Chiara Dollak

Recovery, for him, has meant therapy, stepping away from social media during intense fire periods and making space to decompress. “When it’s been a really intense fire reporting period, just kind of be present, literally touch grass, rest, get away from the digital screen,” he said.

The cost of this work is real, but so is Palley’s commitment to it. He returned to the fire line when the LA fires broke out in January 2025 and hasn’t stepped back since. For those looking to stay informed, he recommends Watch Duty, a free nonprofit app he volunteers for that sends real-time alerts about fires and evacuations across the United States.

His parting advice, after 13 years and nearly 200 fires, is straightforward: “If you’re worried about a fire and you haven’t gotten an evacuation order, you don’t have to wait for an evacuation order to leave. You can always leave.”

You can follow along with Palley’s work on his Instagram , YouTube channel and website .