Photographer Hana Galal Follows You Around Egypt Snapping Travel Pics

CairoScene

3 days ago

This is not a metaphor for freedom. It's a reminder that some creatures are born to outwit traps. With an aversion to stillness; a quiet refusal to be caught, caged, or easily named.
That spirit—fast, observant, just a little untameable—lives in the work of a 28-year-old photographer from Cairo with a camera roll that reads like forbidden adoration letters to Egypt—Hana Galal. The way Galal moves through the world is not in grand gestures. She doesn't shoot from a studio. Her workspace is Egypt itself—from the alleys of Islamic Cairo to the White Desert dunes.
Her photography sessions are often full-day road trips, hopping from city to city, following travellers across the map. 'Some shoots start in Cairo and end somewhere completely different. These are my favourites—we build a real bond.'
It's this dynamic, ground-up documentation of people in place that defines Galal's work. She's building a living archive of modern Egyptian memory—families in motion, lovers in real light, unscripted and wholly rooted. Much of her work lives outdoors. She doesn't direct so much as witness. 'Nothing is staged,' she says. Even her proposal shots—sometimes mistaken for styled shots—are pure chance, caught in that fraction of a breath before joy lands fully on the bride-to-be's face. Less perfection and more intuit.
Somewhere between the gaze and the gesture, long before the shutter clicks, Galal already knows the shot. 'I see in frames,' she says. 'So, I always know how it's going to look.' But what she's chasing isn't composition—it's a shift in air, the look someone gives when they forget they're being watched.
Surprisingly, Galal never set out to be a photographer. There was no grand epiphany, no studio apprenticeship, no teenage vow. In fact, she failed her first photography exam. 'All I knew was that I wanted to do something creative.' But even before she even had the words (or credentials) for it, Galal was already trying to catch the things most people missed. It started with her first mobile phone. 'During school breaks, I'd take photos of grass, shadows, my shoes—whatever caught my eye.'
It wasn't about art. It was about paying attention. A fox in the dunes. A girl with a small phone, chasing light.
Galal's first proper photography session was documenting a 17-day tourism trip while still in university. Since then, she's followed her own rhythm. No fixed hours. No rules but her own. Her work, like her pace, is full of motion—kinetic, visceral, slipping between categories. Stills that feel like scenes. Portraits that behave like film.
And perhaps that's the point. Not to settle. Not to explain. Just to keep moving. To shoot not to impress, but to remember. Walking the line between dreamscape and document, Galal's photographs feel expensive because they are drenched in honesty and authentic moments. And perhaps that's why families return each year to find her in the same city, with the same quiet presence behind the lens. 'There's Hana in Egypt,' they tell their friends. She becomes a part of their stories, their rituals, a trusted constant in a fast-moving country.
And though she works alone—no assistant, no entourage—her presence is what draws people in. Trust , for her, is the real currency. And that trust began with the one person who first believed in her: her father. 'I feel emotionally tied to my camera,' she says. 'My dad actually got it for me, and he's no longer with us.' It's more than just equipment; it's a tether to memory. ' I wouldn't have made it here without him.' And so, this, her first published feature, she softly dedicates to him.
Yet, despite the magic—which recently took her to Paris, where she won her first photography award from OPPO for a photo taken on her phone—as a girl constantly on the road in Egypt, her path hasn't exactly been typical or easy. 'This is not a pampered job. So much travelling, so much pressure. People can't imagine it.' Hana reveals, while on a five hour road trip back to Cairo, afraid of falling asleep on the way, and using our chat as a kind of verbal caffeine shot. But, when she finally made it back to Cairo, she wouldn't even get to rest because she would be catching a midnight flight to Luxor.
After eight years, the pace is wearing. 'I feel severe burnout, but I want to face the challenge. I have the oomph to fight for it because life is very, very enjoyable when you do what you love.'