This Egyptian Photographer Is on a Mission to Visit Every Governorate

For Egyptian travel photographer Amir El Shahawi, the most beautiful light enters Ras el-Bar each morning just after sunrise. The tight alleyways of Ezbet el-Borg are filled with the sounds of men scuttling off to their jobs, while the salty smell from the sea is mixed with the smell of diesel fuel. Then, as these men travel to the piers to unload their boats, weigh and sell their catch from the night before, there is a hint of light illuminating the narrow streets. It is at this time El Shahawi feels a tug deep inside him that he calls "feeling things with my heart". And he immortalises the moment with a quick snap of the shutter.
Hailing from Egypt's Gharbia Governorate, El Shahawi's vision of Egypt revolves around the areas between points of interest. He does not photograph tourist destinations, but rather captures where the intricate layers of Cairo's ancient city creak beneath the surface: narrow, winding paths lined with clothes drying out in the sun, streets where Arabic prayer calls echo off centuries-old stone buildings.  “I like to document real life,” he tells SceneTraveller, “not what we have come to see as real life through social media’s lens, but the raw reality of it.”
Now a 23-year-old business management graduate serving in the Egyptian army, El Shahawi carries three different types of cameras around his neck—including a Fujifilm XP4 that is designed to withstand the knocks of what El Shahawi refers to as "worker zones”—as he weaves between the country’s landscapes, letting the “environment dictate my every move”. In the desert, yellowish hues dominate. In a crop field, he specifically looks for the colour red "because it stands out so well against all the green around it."
His ultimate goal is to photograph all 27 of Egypt's governorates, capturing how the country is shaped by its people, its light, and its landscapes—from the fishing communities of Damietta to the mountains of Sinai, from the ochre dunes of the Western Desert to the yellow-and-black taxis of Alexandria. Each region, he has found, carries its own distinct character, its own way of catching the light.
For El Shahawi, the work is as much about the journey as the image itself. Even a bus ride is part of the process—a chance to observe, feel, and anticipate. “Photography is the last moment of my creative cycle. For me, it all starts with observing,” he explains. The images, then, are not just documentation—they are a record of what he experiences, felt deeply, before it is ever pressed into the frame.