For me, Egypt is a land of surprising diversity. I’m sure like many westerners, there may be a tendency to solely envision it’s grandest offerings as purely pharaonic - and that may be true if one were to only travel from Cairo and directly up the Nile. But beyond the offerings of the Nile is the rich cultural heritage of Islamic, Nubian, Greek, Roman, Berber peoples and countless more, scattered across the coast and deserts. It’s also a land of polar opposites: meticulously built modern and ancient structures, and a capital filled with dilapidated half built apartment buildings; store owners and tour ‘guides’ that will nickel and dime you for everything you’re worth, and locals who happily invite you into their Berber camps and hot springs as guests (no strings attached). It’s a place where the establishment are preoccupied with upholding the most arbitrary and asinine of rules, yet tolerate the complete chaos in many other aspects of daily life.
It proved challenging to take less staged, off-the-cuff photographs as the security apparatus in Egypt are often on-edge and it’s impossible to not stand out like a sore thumb carrying a Nikon as a foreigner.
Considering the pedigree of the nation’s rich cultural heritage found from Alexandria to Cairo to Luxor, it was the relative calm of the remote Siwa Oasis that has stuck in my memory most fondly: It’s hot springs, salt pools and more relaxed Berber locals and big-city transplants searching for a slower, more examined life.