In 2019, Nour El Massry took a photo that would change his life: He snapped a photo of a large terrace in a historical building in the Garden City neighborhood of Cairo. Although the facades surrounding it were old and dusty, the tile on the balcony, home to a set of wicker chairs made comfier with worn kilim rugs, was spotless. He uploaded the image to Instagram.
The next day, he was surprised to find that the post had gone viral. People all over the world were resharing it across social media. “It evoked emotional reactions of comfort and tranquility, nostalgia and connection,” he says.
But El Massry, 29, an Egyptian photographer, art director and film production designer based in Cairo, thought he could do better. “It was nice, but it wasn’t my favorite photo I’ve ever taken. So I decided to show my vision.”
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Since that moment, he’s been posting a regular flow of photos and photo collages of Egyptian interiors, city streets and architecture to his Instagram, @nour_elmassry. Many of his images feel like they were taken in another time. “Cairo is a diverse city with different histories and styles: Islamic, Coptic, Italian, British, French,” he says. “We are living in a museum.”
And although the greater Cairo area is a megacity of about 22 million people, El Massry opts to point his camera past the “chaos and overpopulation” to capture places that feel “just like a dream,” he says. That includes a serene view of a felucca, or wooden sailing boat, floating down the Nile; two potted plants sunning on a balcony; and a grand, Art Deco-style entrance of an apartment building.
“My target is to make my art like a painting,” he says of his aesthetic, which is inspired by the works of Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Hussein Bicar, an Egyptian artist who painted in the Cubist style. If a photo does not meet that standard, sometimes he will enhance the moonlight, add birds flying overhead or even frame the image with another, perhaps a window from an Islamic-style building.
Here is a selection of his images and art:
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