This Photographer Turns Marketing Campaigns Into Portrait of Cairo

Every morning, Egyptian photographer Omar Shady commutes from Haram to central Cairo on a route that takes him past the pyramids, and every morning, he looks at them as if he’s seeing them for the first time.

Shady studied engineering and never worked a day as an engineer. He had always loved film and the camera, and when he took a sales job at Palma while still at university, mostly for the extra money, he found himself growing into it in ways he hadn’t anticipated, moving from sales to branch manager to a creative role that suited him far better than anything that came before.

“The work I make for Palma pushes against the usual logic of polished fashion campaigns,” Shady tells CairoScene. “It’s less interested in what is being worn than in where the wearing is happening, less about the clothes than about the city that surrounds them, the rooftops and side streets and the particular quality of light that makes Cairo look like nowhere else on earth.”

Long before the global conversation around brand storytelling caught up, Shady and Palma were already doing it differently. At a time when brands worldwide are moving away from selling products and toward telling stories, the two have spent years building something that puts Cairo - not the product - at the centre of the frame. His approach to Palma’s campaigns came from a desire to map the city through the people who actually live in it, seeking out figures whose relationship to Cairo feels raw and real. People step into Palma pieces not to model them, but to extend who they already are, the clothes speaking to the city they inhabit.

“Cairo is a big question mark I still can’t answer,” he says. “It’s a movie with no single director, no sound engineer who can mimic its noise, and visuals you won’t find anywhere else. Whatever angle you need, you will find it here.”Shady’s first short film grew out of an ongoing observation of an elderly photographer who lived on a rooftop in Haram. He set out to document his journey and, through it, the wider expanse of Cairo. The same philosophy has guided his artist spotlight series, built around painters, photographers, and filmmakers working within the city. Most recently, he has stepped into music video direction, adding another layer to his storytelling practice.

“I’m a storyteller more than anything,” he says. “The camera is my weapon, but the story is never just about the person in front of it; it’s always about the city behind them.”

Currently, Shady is filming a documentary on Emel Mathlouthi, the Tunisian-American singer behind Kelmti Horra, focusing on her journey following a recent concert he documented in Dubai.

In photography, fashion, and music videos, Omar Shady’s protagonists and products cannot be separated from Cairo. To him, it’s one story. The city, he says, will always be his muse.