Flickr Images from Revolutionary Cairo
If Twitter has been dominating the discussion of social media and the current protests in Egypt, they aren't the only social network filling the intertubes with oodles of information created by everyday people, media professionals, and governmental forces. Sure the other social media channels have s
If Twitter has been dominating the discussion of social media and the current protests in Egypt, they aren’t the only social network filling the intertubes with oodles of information created by everyday people, media professionals, and governmental forces.
Sure the other social media channels have suffered because of the internet clampdown that made their use near impossible but now that the country of Egypt is (kinda) connected again to the World Wide Web we can go beyond Twitter’s textual minimalism to explore more vivid realities, notably Flickr.
Sure Flickr’s future is far from certain, but until we all have to pack up our thousands of photos the photo-sharing site is still the best source for images that document the evolving present-day realities of Cairo and beyond.
I’ve listed the best Flickrstreams that I’ve discovered covering the protests. I’ve restricted my list to photographers who post their images under a Creative Commons license … because sharing is caring.
3arabawy‘s photos have already appeared on Al Jazeera and elsewhere, and they are more professional and composed than your average Flickr user. He has captured men walking around the “We are free” written on their foreheads, people crossing the now infamous Qasr el-Nil Bridge, and some artistically composed black and white images. His image (top of this post) of Hosni Mubarak as Hitler is pure visual genius.
Cairean amateur photographer Tarek has been curating an interesting set of photos on his stream, including many protest signs that vary from the folksy, cartoony (1 & 2), sidewalk signs, and some targeted at tourists, though I really like seeing one image of protest signs and flags against the backdrop of a KFC franchise.
One 25-year-old Egyptian photographer, Ahmad Hammoud is using the latest turmoil as a chance to promote his own work. and even asks people to fan his Facebook page — it also appears he has a tumblelog in the works. The slogan that appears on the Facebook page is fittingly, “Photography is the only language understood by the whole world.”
Egyptian photographer Nasser Nouri has a well-curated stream that is soo up-to-date that it has images of today’s attack of protesters by pro-government forces and even some of the injured. What’s interesting is that Nouri also appears to have captured images of the earlier Tunisian revolution as well.
Monasosh wins he prize for the most Flickr uploads. She uploaded over a dozen pages of photos today alone. She’s captured everything from colorfully pretty signs, bizarre caricatures of Mubarak, an effigy of Mubarak hanging from a lightpole, rhyming signs, layers of graffiti on armored vehicles, and some haunting images of faceless protesters.
The most stunning photo is of a man (above) walking around with a sign explaining how to tweet via phone, the sign reads “Google service to send messages to Twitter call the following numbers … ” Thank you @ayadh & @aliciad3 for the translation!
Al Jazeera’s Egypt coverage has proven how antiquated the rest of the TV news landscape is — with the exception of BBC — and the Qatar-based channel even has a Flickrstream with some fantastic images, including a photo with a prominent use of Facebook (above), a colorful and shiny “Go” sign, and some protest flowcharts that are also so geeky & weird that I want to tumble them.
Sarah Carr is capturing various scenes in Cairo that vary from street art/graffiti set (including the “Down with Mubarak” image above) and even a shot of someone spraying a stencil.
Then via this rather anonymous Flickrstrea, flickr.com/civilianworld, we find some chilling photos of clouds of smoke at a protest, a canister of tear gas (above), empty shell casings, and a small inspirational sign that evokes the American civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s.
Here are some other Flickstreams worth a look:
- Floris Van Cauwelaert’s stream is mostly snapshots from the perspective of someone walking around but they are charming, flickr.com/flomobile,
- Satanic Amr‘s stream is entertaining and includes a sign that reads “Nero burned Rome, Mubarak burning Egypt,” and a car on flames from one of the early riots,
- Mahmoud Saber has captured some of the destroyed police stations and some canisters of tear gas that are — sadly — Made in the USA, and
- then take a look at some general protest photos by Mashahed.
