Beautiful photography of Cairenes

My former neighbor, Miguel Angel Sanchez, is featured by the NYT's photography blog. I've been talking to Miguel about his project for years, and stupidly have not yet taken up his offer of a portrait. Check out the slideshow here.

On the right, Amm Rabia, a super-friendly bawaab on our street, now immortalized.

Update on November 29, 2011 at 3:58 PM by Issandr El Amrani

Miguel will be exhibiting the photos starting next week — here are the details:

Date:Sunday,December 11, 2011 Time: 7 PM
Venue: Palace of Arts, Cairo Opera House

Exhibition will be running from December 11, 2011 until January 9, 2012 

Comments

[SP]

I thought he looked familiar!!! Mabrouks to him - hope he got it framed!

[akkadia]

I was struck by the ethical implications of this statement describing the origins of his work:

"Mr. Sánchez has long been making portraits of the people around him. “I started in Madrid 10 years ago, taking pictures at night of the people on the streets, drunk, homeless,” he said. “I really liked to talk to them, share a cigarette, and afterwards take a portrait.”

Sounds exploitative, a form of poverty tourism. A cigarette and companionable chat in exchange for the potential immortalization of one's image - that's a raw deal. Hopefully he asked their permission and later tracked them down to give them a copy of their portrait, something a little less ephemeral than a smoke. (I knew a girl in college who made a point of doing this when she traveled to India and everyone involved really appreciated it.)

His project in Egypt seems more sophisticated and better thought through. Again, I hope each subject received a copy their portrait.