I began photographing in 2013, in Eastern Ghouta, under siege and bombardment. I had no training — only the need to act, not to sit idly while my city died. I volunteered at the media office in Hamouriya with friends, many later killed. They remain alive in my memory, like the photographs that survived.
We lived in daily survival. Tomorrow didn’t exist. Fear was constant, yet it never stopped us from resisting with words, with images, with truth.
Then came forced displacement. Something broke inside when we were driven from our homes, thousands forced north. I was shattered, hopeless. I left, searching for a new life, certain I would never return. I thought this land had given me only pain, violence, and farewells.
But exile gave me willpower. From Turkey to France, then Sudan, I clung to two things: never to surrender, and to find joy. My surrender would be their victory; my joy, their defeat.
As an independent photographer, I grew from digital to analog, which taught me patience and listening. My old camera forced me to set up, to speak with people, to build trust before pressing the shutter. Photography became human connection — a bridge of respect that made images more truthful.
In December 2024, after the fall of the regime, I returned. The emotions remain indescribable. I saw my family after seven years, walked on soil I thought I’d never see again. For the first time, I could speak of Syria with a kind of positivity.
I traveled from Damascus to Homs, the coast and its villages, Aleppo, Palmyra, Sweida. One day I had coffee in Masyaf, lunch in Tartous, and dinner under a tent in the desert. That night, I felt I was finally seeing the country with new eyes.
The photographs from this journey are faces of Syrians from every corner: besieged towns, cities of silence, places that only knew war from afar. In every city, another city hides; in every face, a story of fear, hope, or the search for meaning.
This is how the country split apart: not only in politics, but in glances, body language, the silence between words. Yet despite everything, people here still want life — they struggle to stay, to live together again.
These photographs are not only records of a moment. They are an attempt to understand Syria — the country I never truly knew while I was there, and to which I am now trying to belong once more
