Photo of the Week: Malek Al Dayni

Saudi-based photographer Malek Al Dayni explores the relationship between people and the city through architectural and street photography. His work transforms buildings, urban spaces and everyday moments into visual stories, often using light, colour and composition to explore the dualities hidden within a single frame.

For this edition of ‘Photo of the Week’, Al Dayni selected an image taken in Riyadh in April 2026. While walking through the city, he came across an angle where the unfinished landscape, monumental architecture and open sky immediately stood out. He then pushed that contrast further by introducing an inverted building into the frame.

The result is a meeting point between reality and imagination, turning a familiar cityscape into something both recognisable and strange. The tower suggests progress and possibility, while the rubble below and birds waiting in the foreground introduce a quieter sense of uncertainty.

For Al Dayni, this tension reflects the duality he finds in both life and art: the idea that something can be beautiful and unsettling, familiar and strange, real and imagined at the same time.