In Pictures: Ali Zaraay Visually Captures People, Their Faces, and Their Stories
By Malak Khaled
Ali Zaraay, an Egyptian documentary photographer and photojournalist that’s based in Germany. After the 2011 revolution, Zaraay found his passion for photojournalism as he started to see Egypt in a different light. He took interest in covering Egyptian daily life by wandering around Egypt’s north and south villages and cities to capture the local’s lives. He also covered Coptic mass events as well as the Sufis and their celebrations and rituals. He has also been working as a press photographer in different Egyptian newspapers for the past few years.
His main focus in the past few years is to beautifully photograph the marginalized, which led to his long-term documentary project about Nomadic Bedouins in Egypt. He also conducted a visual documentary of orphans suffering from HIV in Nakuru village, Kenya.
In 2019 and 2020, Ali gave a couple of workshops in “Street Storytelling Photography” in Cairo. He is currently studying in Hochschule Hannover’s International Program of Documentary photography and Photojournalism’s program 2020.
Ali’s unique and genuine way of visually detailing people’s daily lives, faces, stories, and differences through his visual telescope allowed him to zoom in, connect and understand people as well as his roots which walked him through the doors, into the viewers’ hearts.
