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David Degner

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Professor Ali Mohamed Zaki and the Corona Virus

A portrait of Professor Ali Mohamed Zaki in his office in CAIRO, EGYPT on March 15 . Dr. Zaki diagnosed the first patient with a strain of the Corona Virus in Saudi Arabia. He was then fired for announcing it himself, but the information was later used to help diagnose another patient in the UK.

The Best Egyptian Photographers on Instagram

There has been a surge of high quality photographers in Egypt and many of them are sharing their work on Instagram. I started with a list of 50 photographers and edited it to about 15 that I feel have something special to say about Egypt and the world through their photography.  Nariman El-Mofty – Started covering […]

Who still supports Morsy?

When President Morsy was removed from office by a military Junta thousands joined a month long sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya. State media reported that the protesters were terrorists, weapon wielding, foreign, mercenaries. These portraits are an attempt to directly photograph and quote the people I met in Rabaa al-Adawiya to decrease any distortion. Taher Gamal […]

Sinai Trail

The Sinai Trail has been in development since 2014 and is now ready to walk. Egypt’s first long distance public hiking trail and one of a number of new hiking trails being built across the Middle East. Beginning by the Gulf of Aqaba and ending in the highlands of St Katherine – the so-called Roof […]

Fancy Pigeons

“pigeons are rats with wings” is a common sentiment in the US but they are an art form for the pigeon fanciers of Cairo. I talked my way up to one of the ubiquitous wood slat roosts that are visible across the city and have learned that their obsession reaches across the region, lasts for […]

Mahraganat Music

Through the warren of Cairo’s unplanned neighborhoods, mahraganat (festival) music blasts from tuk-tuks, cigarette stalls and cranked up cellphone speakers; auto-tuned voices mixing with heavy electronic rap beats. The sound quality is low and the lyrics are unmistakably vulgar. Egyptians can’t get enough. Sha’abi music (literally translating to the music of the ‘poor’) is the […]

Modern Miracles

Modern Miracles While working on news stories in Egypt I heard other stories of miracles that intrigued me, so I started keeping a list. The list grew to about 50 miracles, interventions in the physical world, or blessed locations.  Over about 6 years I tracked down these stories to their sources and made photographs along […]