Eshraq Abdulhaleem Al-Aghbary is a Yemeni photographer based in Cairo, who is still at the beginning of her journey with photography, which she taught herself using a mobile phone. Her relationship with the image grew out of a desire to understand the world and express things she couldn’t say with words.
She grew up in a closed community and went through intellectual transformations and difficult experiences that shaped her outlook on life. For her, photography and films were a safe space and a refuge for expression, observation, and trying to understand people, emotions, and memory. She is interested in documenting simple human details and personal stories, especially those related to displacement, daily life, and the changes experienced by the people around her.
Eshraq believes that a photo is not just a tool for documentation, but a way to preserve experiences and feelings, giving them a space to emerge and be shared.
Artist Statement
I approach photography as a space for continuous research rather than a fixed practice, as I am always in a state of questioning, experimentation, and discovery. My relationship with the image began with an inner feeling of being unable to express myself in words, so the camera became my closest tool for understanding myself and others.
My personal experience was influenced by war, displacement, and deep intellectual transformations. Along with these came a sense of solitude and a lack of belonging at times, which prompted me to search for a different meaning in the world around me. Therefore, I use photography as a personal journey to understand the human experience in all its complexities, not just to document it.
I escape cliché, love uniqueness and thinking outside the box, and find in every new experience an opportunity to reconsider my ideas and vision. I use the mobile phone as my primary tool, believing that honesty in an image is more important than technical capabilities.
For me, photography does not offer ready-made answers, but rather an open journey of exploration where personal experience intersects with philosophy, memory, and reality.
