I'm Karim, an Egyptian-Sudanese portrait photographer based in Cairo.
The first time I held a professional camera was in 2014, documenting a community project during university. I wasn't planning to become a photographer. But I watched how people looked at their own portraits, and something about it stayed with me. I kept shooting, and by the time I finished my civil engineering degree in 2018, photography had quietly become the plan.
For years I photographed everything, then noticed I kept returning to people. A portrait, done right, becomes more than a photograph. It can change how someone sees themselves, and it can carry them back to who they used to be. I try to photograph people where they feel most like themselves, because that's where the truest version tends to show up.
In 2024, a portrait from my series People of the Misty Oasis earned the National Award for Egypt at the Sony World Photography Awards.
The best portraits I've made all do the same quiet thing. They show someone a version of themselves they can believe.
