The relaxed chatter coming from ground-floor balconies, the joyful music of late Ramadan songs, and the quietness of practically deserted churches give Heliopolis a particular soundscape in Ramadan.
This eastern Cairo neighbourhood has lost a deal (...)
It Started simply enough with a Karim Stores photographer, Boulos Isaac, answering amateur photographers' questions on the company's Facebook page, writes Sherif Sonbol. Isaac is such a gifted teacher he actually prefers teaching photography to (...)
With antiseptics becoming a staple household item due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the convergence of people across the world, Egyptians being no exception, on sterilisers, it seemed a good idea to embark on a quest to purchase (...)
My first visit to Marsa Matrouh on Egypt's North Coast was in May 1989. It was a dreamland at the time, with very few people on the streets. Some cows belonging to local Bedouins sauntered on the beaches and among the ruins of the Lido Hotel that (...)
Ever since 1959, a couple of hours before the sun sets border guards from Pakistan and India line up in a large stadium. Each group stands on its side of the famous Wagah border between the two countries where they perform a stunning and theatrical (...)
Even as a child I often dreamed of travelling in a caravan by camelback on the legendary Silk Road, the greatest trade route in history which joined China to Europe across the Asian continent.
Part of my childhood dream came true in October and (...)
Even as a child I often dreamed of travelling in a caravan by camelback on the legendary Silk Road, the greatest trade route in history which joined China to Europe across the Asian continent.
Part of my childhood dream came true in October and (...)
Egypt's Nile River hosted Saturday a second round of a new dragon boat race as part of the Chinese Spring Festival.
Teams from Egypt, China, the US, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, the Phillipines, Australia and Portugal participated in the ancient (...)
INVITED by Chinese cultural attaché Shi Yue Wen to an evening of Chinese music and dance, photographer Sherif Sonbol was delighted with the three solo performances including a piano recital by Shi Bai Qian as well as eight dances representing eight (...)
AS THE SUMMER draws to a close, Al-Qanater Al-Khaireya grows busier by the day with holiday-makers. Built around the first modern irrigation barrages in Egyptian history, the idyllic city of “the Benevolent Barrages” — just outside Cairo — became a (...)
Nothing marks the festive spirit of Ramadan like a traditional metal fanous – or lantern. Though under threat of extinction due to a flood of plastic imports, the fanous maker can still be seen plying his centuries-old craft, and bringing a smile to (...)
Last month while enlarging my pictures in preparation for an exhibition in Warsaw, my eye caught a blurry, pale picture on the lab manager's desk. I did not say a word, yet I was very curious to know why someone would take, let alone enlarge such a (...)
With unexpected levels of interest in literary titles, the 48th Cairo International Book Fair has taken the country by storm. Political titles and family activities continue to command huge numbers of fair goers, but statistics indicate that (...)
It's a long ride to Siwa, but I always say it's worth the time spent on the road. This oasis of grandeur and magnificence in the Western Desert is a perpetual source of inspiration for a photographer like myself. It's true that the Siwa Oasis is (...)
I don't know why I have never been to Siwa. I've read about it, seen pictures of it, and heard about it as having a magical ambiance found nowhere else. Last month, I decided to take the 800km trip from Cairo to one of the only places in Egypt that (...)
It's time to correct some misapprehensions about Egypt's Tuesday markets. There is not a single Tuesday market in Cairo's Gamaliya district, this was not established during the time of the Mamelukes, and Tuesday markets are not even necessarily held (...)
Like phantoms from my childhood, I vividly remember the members of the Hassaballah Troupe, all dressed in khaki, marching in a wedding procession and playing their brass instruments that have very distinctive sounds, only to disappear at the end of (...)
Religious art is not just about morality, eternity and the immutable rules of the universe. It can also be about speed and how much time there is before a mural painting dries.
If you want a mural to last, you have to apply the paint to the wall (...)
Two years ago, the man everyone calls khal, or uncle, sent me on a mission. Abdel-Rahman Al-Abnoudi, the famous Egyptian poet who passed away in April this year, wanted me to go to his hometown of Abnoud in Upper Egypt. There, I would photograph (...)
Until my friends returned from America with a new and strange drink called iced tea, to my mind tea could only be a black powder sold in boxes — which you boil in water or add boiled water to — making it red. In the forests of Thailand I was later (...)
The Deir Al-Surian Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun boasts some gems of holy architecture and design, with the Church of the Holy Virgin, the Gate of Prophecies and the uniquely detailed gypsum altar. It also contains the relics of Mary Magdalen, and (...)
I have always worked with antiquities, inside and outside Egypt: ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Coptic, Islamic, Ottoman, Hittite, Hapsburg... Each time I heard the stories attached to the monuments, and each time they felt unreal. They were myths (...)
The Czech Ambassador Pavel Kafka and the First Undersecretary of the Culture Ministry for Foreign Relations Kamilia Sobhi inaugurated a remarkable exhibition from Bohemia titled Eye's Delight at the Doroub Gallery. I was invited there by Kafka, a (...)
Toshiro Suzuki, the Japanese Ambassador to Egypt, lives in a fine art deco house with extraordinary gates. The interiors are simple and decorated with flowers in the Japanese ikebana style by the ambassador's wife. Having received an invitation for (...)
Along with its world-famous monuments, Egypt also has an extremely rich intangible heritage that includes songs, music, drama, skills, crafts, dialects, customs, traditions, festivals, oral epics, ways of life and other parts of culture that are (...)