Beat
I mostly cover news and features.
One Shot
“I don’t have a favourite picture, but I liked the reporting I did in Libya. I enjoyed being in a place for some time and building a relationship with a difficult situation like the Libyan revolution.”
Profile
I haven’t been a photographer for that long, but I’ve been a journalist for a long time, and I mostly carried my camera with me.
Earlier in my career, I got a freelance text-reporting job in Iraq, and I remember that they published some of the pictures I took too.
Growing up in Egypt, I wasn’t exposed to photography that much, and I didn’t think of it as a potential job. I didn’t learn to photograph in school, that’s for sure, but I learnt over time by practicing – shooting, shooting, shooting…
I really like my role as a photographer now because it’s connected to journalism. I’ve always been a journalist. I wrote my first story 17 years ago.
So far, there’s been no single assignment that’s affected me more than all the others. Every place I went left a different mark. I went to Iraq as a freelancer for three years, I covered the revolution in Libya, and Tahrir Square in Egypt, which affected me especially because it was my own country. All of these assignments left a big impression.
I don’t think about my audience when I take pictures. I’m just thinking about capturing a good, important, or maybe artistic news shot. When I take a photo, I’m thinking: “this is an important moment, and I’m here.”
Any pictures that don’t have human beings in them are less interesting to me as a journalist. I like to capture the expression of someone walking along, and I like to establish trust with the people in my pictures.