Freelance photographer Ahmad Mansour was visiting Al Max, a fishing neighbourhood in Alexandria, Egypt, when he took this image on his mobile phone. Mansour was there with friends, documenting the area and the fishermen who resided there.
“The sun was bright and it was very loud; the water was running strongly and the men were shouting,” Mansour says. “I climbed a small building to reach this vantage point above the men with the sardines. I love the top view angle; I’d been inspired by another image that was split that way and it suited the colours to balance them like this, too.”
Mansour says he didn’t have the luxury of a camera back in 2019. “But I wasn’t disheartened. I think it’s important to remember it depends most of all on your vision, and striving to capture that. I hope people see this like a snapshot of a movie; a small moment in time.”
Since Mansour took the image, many of the houses around the canal have been demolished and the area has been renovated. “The fishermen no longer gather there as they used to,” he says. “Most of them have moved closer to the sea instead.”
