Words and Pictures from the Middle East
Cairo, a steaming mess of a city that has the capacity to at first seduce and serenade you then almost immediately slap and violate you, and yet, despite it all you keep coming back for more. And here I was, back again. On the balcony of my scruffy room in the Hotel Hussein, the hotel…
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Photographs really should be printed and hung on walls; I say this as someone who loves photography not as a photographer. As I work towards launching a new website dedicated to print sales I am offering a generous discount to raise the necessary funds, buying a print will go a long way to supporting my…
Read MoreHaving wandered the fetid alleyways of the Fatimid’s all morning I found myself sitting in a tiny coffee shop no bigger than an average size bathroom, the old man was sitting on the opposite row of benches, the sun couldn’t quite reach over the mud brick walls of the Cairo labyrinth, it was December and…
Read MoreA typically beautiful Cairo morning, cool in the dusty shadows with cats basking in the warm November sun. I crossed the not yet busy square of Midan Hussein dodging a bread delivery boy balancing a rack of fresh baladi bread on his head; I slipped into my usual first port of call for coffee, one…
Read MoreTime for Mahfouz is a constant theme, in the opening chapter of Midaq Alley we hear Kirsha argue in favour of the instillation of a radio leaving the poet without a venue to recite his stories, “everything has changed” insisted Kirsha. The tram lines seen here along Sharia Port Said are, like the coffee shop…
Read MoreEating my breakfast several floors up I watched the two policemen going about their business of guarding the tourists flocking to be fleeced in the Khan El Khalili bazaar, personally I have always felt a policeman should cut an imposing figure, but this pair were holding hands and gazing into each others eyes as though…
Read MoreMy friend Gomer had some business to attend to and asked if I wanted to tag along, we set off along a side street from Darb al Ahmar and meandered through the alleys, we climbed a low wall and threaded our way carefully through a smoldering rubbish tip, I wasn’t sure what Gomer’s business was…
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Cairo: The Reflection of Resistance
Reflections of resistance is a photo essay on my work in Cairo looking at post revolution street art and graffiti, text is in Turkish fortunately for my Turkish friends but for the rest of us, well the pictures can speak for themselves!
Scream from the streets of Cairo, the echo of an entire nation cheated and traumatized by successive repressive regimes embodied in one image etched into the tarmac of Tahrir Square.
Read MoreOriginally posted on John Wreford Photographer:
As with everything else in Cairo buying a train ticket can be an both amusing and infuriating at the same time, maybe it’s just me but part of the charm of Cairo is it’s utterly chaotic nature and just maybe a sense of humor is how Egyptians deal with…
John Wreford Photographer 