Where are all the pictures of Cairo?
To begin with, I’m pretty skittish about taking pictures of people without their permission (well, there goes the dream of being a photojournalist. National Geographic, you can send my 3rd grade inquiry letter back) and Egypt is notorious for not being photo-friendly. The police (which are everywhere) don’t like you taking pictures of buildings. When you take pictures of people, they expect you to pay them for the honor (especially near and around the pyramids) and your big tourist sign waves even higher. One of my friends is in a photography class, and she found a picture opportunity she couldn’t pass up: rows and rows of naked mannequins, stacked up in an alleyway store behind our hotel, lit by a sickly florescent light. As soon as she snapped the picture, the store owner invited her in and basically made her take pictures of her in the shop, with his family, etc. etc. It’s a production to take a picture, and me and my point-and-shoot digital often can’t be bothered.
