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My final project’s theme was the history and diversity of downtown Cairo captured with a Nikon D3300 camera. It was a very challenging topic due to the fact that the Egyptian government strictly prohibits street photography and especially in downtown. As a result, I had to visit downtown four times in order to capture the photographs properly and be able to demonstrate the best out of this place. Moreover, in order for me to shoot the photographs with less traffic and chaos as possible I had to only visit downtown on Friday early in the morning, between 7 am and 12 am, in order to avoid the clutter.

Thus, due to these timings of my visit to downtown during winter, the sky was always light blue with a sprightly ray of sunlight. As a result, almost all of my photos, had a constant aperture of (f 5,6 ) to allow more sunlight to pass through my camera’s lens and (ISO 200). Another aspect that I had to take into consideration was the cars and people moving around the streets. Since I had no control over their movement in my photos, I had to settle for a fast shutter speed of (1/125) in order to allow the image to be less blurry and also freeze the object's’ motion.

#Cairo Downtown

However, I couldn’t have much control over how my scene would be set up since all of my photos were on the streets and all what I have done to properly shoot my image was wait for the street to be less crowded from people and cars as possible. Also, since in downtown there is no specific heights for the buildings, the sunlight was usually randomly covering areas in the photo making it look messy and disordered. Thus, my only solution to such issue was to either wait for the sunlight to circulate and cover another angle or to actually capture the image from a different angle myself whether from below, level, or above. I had to set my scenes in as much light as possible since I didn’t want them shady because of the weather conditions and also to demonstrate the beauty of the details found in this place.

Besides, I had to enforce and apply the basic visual composition rules of photography while setting up my scenes. The main ones I had strongly enforced in my photographs were leading lines, frame-in-frame, colors, rule of thirds, rhythm. The reason why I specifically applied these techniques is because I strongly believe that these aspects bring the best of the photograph and directly focuses on the subject of the photo and make it stand out. I also tried as much as possible to include lines, whether vertical or positive, since lines are known for drawing the eyes’ of the viewer to the subject of the photo.

#Cairo Downtown

It was certainly a pleasure to join the Ismaelia’s walking D-Tour of Downtown Cairo. It was one of the wonderful experiences due to the fact that I had to pamper my eyes with all the beautiful cite seeings from the art deco to the symbolic buildings there... it just like I was walking in Paris but the statues in each square exudes Arab iconography and suddenly brings my mind back to Cairo. The experience triggered me to start digging deeper into the history of downtown Cairo since I was amazed by the fact that how this place could be a melting pot of history and diversity. I decided to do a complete photography project about downtown in order to share this experience and cherish it till forever.

#downtown cairo egypt

The three college students were hiding from the Friday morning sun, standing in the round landing in front of the main entrance of Ali Pasha Mubarak’s Villa, or what is now known as Groppi. In thei...

On the much-needed conversation about how and if multiple visions for downtown Cairo can coalesce to create more accessible, multifunctional public spaces without declawing the heart of the city.

run - The “Downtown Cairo Geneva Run”, an event organised through the cooperation of the Cairo governorate, Cairo Runners, and the Embassy of Switzerland, took p

#embassy of switzerland

Half of the charm of Cairo’s downtown is in its past. There are so many memories lingering at every street corner: the display cabinets with the gilded French phrases in pharmacies that haven’t renovated since WWII, the forgotten advertising of an old cigarette brand staring at you from the side of a building, the Greek names on mechanic shops and liquor stores, all signs of the a world that came crashing right after the monarchy was ended.v

#cairo downtown

The deputy governor of Cairo, Major General Mohammed Ayman Abdel Tawab, said Friday that the governorate issued a demolition license for the historical building of InterContinental hotel in downtown Cairo located at the corner of Adly and Al-Gomhoreya streets in Abdeen area. Tawab told Al-Masry Al-Youm that this was based on a request made by

One Friday autumn morning, we decided to dive into Egypt’s urban legends as we joined Ismaelia’s walking D-Tour of Downtown Cairo. From Art-Deco icons to the historical cinema that hosted Bassem Youssef’s show, Valentina Primo unveils the stories woven by the area’s stimulating streets.

Steve McCurry wanted to demonstrate through Sharbat’s bewildered eyes how the Afghans faced the struggles that her country have gone through in the toils of the war. The eyes manifest the fears this kid like many other kids would have felt during such hard time. Also, the feeling that her childhood is stolen from her and other children. The portrait acts as a historical evidence to depict the Afghanistan’s war time and the jeopardy and fearfulness many adults and children had to feel at that time.

#steve mccurry

McCurry is best known for his portrait he captured in 1984 called “Afghan Girl”. The portrait consisted of a 12-year-old Pashtun orphan, known as ‘Sharbat Gula’ in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. The image itself was known as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the National Geographic magazine, and her face became as a cover on the June 1985 issue. Gula was forced to flee Afghanistan when her parents were killed by a Soviet airstrike. In the photo the young girl is basically turned towards the camera, with incredibly intense, bewildered eyes. Her shawl is also torn, and the image’s effect is an enchanting mixture of beauty and devastation representing the struggles of every Afghani refugee.

The main visual technique the photographer used was color. The color technique in the portrait was used as an accent. McCurry used a very high aperture in order to blur the greenish background and make the subject the main focus of the image. The girl’s eyes are dark green on the outside and fading inward to a light hazel. Using this theory, McCurry chose to put Gula in front of a similar green background and uses Gula’s own tattered and burned burgundy shawl over a matching green undershirt to frame her face, drawing even more attention to her haggard face and eyes. Adding to the overall effect, he chose to take the photo in a soft, low light area, which makes Gula’s eyes pop up and seem even brighter. The contrasting colors of red and green draw the viewer’s attention to all of the colors involved.

With the girl filling the frame, her eyes look deep down into your very core, asking for understanding. Red is a bold hot pigment which causes the viewer to think about the personality of the photographed subject. Also, the green backlighting draws attention to the shape which the girl. McCurry wanted to show the cruelty of an entire nation through her eyes. The scars of a lost mother and father haunt her eyes. The eyes are both haunting and haunted. A cry to end the conflict in Afghanistan is trying to make itself known through those eyes. The hodgepodge of red and green causes the viewer to have mixed emotions in front these eyes and question whether her anger and sadness are expressed through the intensity of her stare, or does the coolness of the green yield her deepest fears?

#afghan girl #steve mccurry

Steve McCurry has been one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photojournalism for more that thirty years. "In the Shadow of Mountains" is McCurry's journey across Afghanistan and is a glimpse into the country and all its complexities. We could see in the photos that they represent it beauty, its violence, its peace, its destruction, and its resilience. Throughout his career McCurry has returned to Afghanistan time and time again – under different regimes and at times of civil unrest – to document the people, the landscape and the heritage of this troubled, yet captivating, country. The photos rely on various visual techniques that make them catchy and iconic till today.

#steve mccurry

The photo I chose is an attempt to duplicate a photograph from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills which is a suite of 70 black-and-white photographs made over the course of three years in which the artist posed in the guises of various generic female film characters, among them, ingénue, working girl, vamp, and lonely housewife. Sherman’s main concept was to insert herself into a dialogue about stereotypical portrayals of women.

First of all, I couldn’t exactly mimic Sherman’s photo due to different background conditions and also I couldn’t capture the model from the same exact angle Sherman used.

There were several visual techniques used in the photograph such as ‘rule of thirds’. It was applied by which the model was aligned with the guidelines and their intersection points. Thus, allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section and enabling the viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally.

By the same token, Sherman used asymmetry as another visual mean. In other words, if the photo is sliced into two halves, neither side should be symmetrical. In an asymmetrical photograph, the subject of interest may be placed off to the left or right of the photograph rather than in the center as might be expected.

Moreover, another visual technique Sherman used was cropping. She basically cropped all the necessary details in order to make the centre of the attention of the photograph to be the model she is capturing. Also, background could be another element I considered while capturing the photo. I had to fade away the background by decreasing the aperture to F5 in order to make the model only exposed. Such technique is eye catching since you basically force the viewer to see whatever you want first.

Pyramidal Composition

Rhythm

Texture

Leading Line #2

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Sara Mohamed