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CAIRO BY NIGHT
The story
behind the photo
 
FANS
OF SMOKE Photo
and text by Youssef Rakha
Grass-roots night life in Cairo
is photogenic in a unique way. While some may think its charm is in its
exotic qualities, the truth is that such sights, to the wandering
Cairene, are more or less commonplace.
It is their strange, gritty
beauty that you are after – a beauty in which you tend to recognize
less visible aspects of yourself, your ancestry, the collective memory
of your society.
The whole process is always
rewarding enough so long as something of the character of the subjects
comes through: the ancient electric fan keeping shisha coals aglow, for
example, typifies the small downtown hideaway of a café in which it was
taken in a particular, immediate way.
So does the smile of Karam, that
café's amiable ahwagy, a character worthy of a book-length photo essay
in his own right.
Many have commented that the
picture of the tea house, taken in Gamaleya, not far from Bait Al-Sehiemi,
towards the end of 2002, looks like it belongs to a bygone age, an age
before electricity. In fact the only light source in the picture was a
60-watt tungsten bulb located above the central figure’s head outside
the frame.
From
a work in progress called "Monochrome Cairo" by Youssef Rakha,
who can be contacted at yrakha@link.net  Technical
specifications: All
three pictures were taken with a Nikon 601 and 28-85 Nikkor zoom on
Kodak T Max 400 film rated at ISO 1600, push processed and printed on
Ilford Multigrade IV.
Previous
installments:
COFFEE DISPENSER
KANAFANI, TAHRIR ROAD
TYRE REPAIRS
FARGHALI FRUIT JUICE, DOKKI
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