A woman sitting on a large rock in front of a large shrub with white flowers, wearing a black jacket, blue jeans, sneakers, and a black beanie, with a white bag over her shoulder, looking up at the bushes.

About Me

I’m Mariam — a photographer and visual storyteller from Cairo, now based in Berlin.

With a background in Media Design, Art History and Gender Studies, and a lifelong instinct of turning emotions into something visual, photography has become a language for me — a way make visible what can otherwise be difficult to hold onto or put into words.

My work lives somewhere between portraiture and documentary, shaped by light, nature, memory, and the inner landscapes we carry with us. I’m drawn to what is real, fleeting and quietly beautiful: the subtle expressions, gestures and connections that reveal something about who we are and how a moment felt.

For many years, I used myself as both subject and witness in my work — creating self-portraits through periods of change, emotional intensity and personal transformation. Photography became a way of seeing myself, expressing what I couldn’t always explain, and giving form to inner experiences.

Spending so much time on both sides of the camera has also made me deeply aware of how vulnerable it can feel to be photographed. I know the self-consciousness that can appear when a lens is pointed at you — and how different it feels when you are given enough time and space to forget about it.

It’s this same attentiveness I bring to the people I photograph today.

A woman crouching and taking a photograph with a camera in a desert landscape with small hills and mountains in the distance under a clear blue sky.

How I Work

My approach is intuitive, gentle, and observant. I’m a quiet presence by nature, and I’ve come to see this as one of my greatest strengths as a photographer. Rather than constantly directing or interrupting, I listen and pay attention: to the energy in the room, to your natural rhythm, and to what begins to unfold when no one feels the need to perform for the camera.

I don’t come with a rigid script or a fixed list of poses. I guide when guidance is helpful, and step back when the moment needs room.

Whether we’re creating portraits, exploring a creative idea, or documenting an important moment in your life, I want to create a space where you can be fully yourself. Where quietness is welcome. Where movement doesn’t have to be forced. Where the things that make you you don’t need to be polished away.

My photography is documentary in spirit, but shaped by feeling. I believe images can hold more than how something looked. They can carry something of how it felt. They can preserve an experience, reflect something back to us, and sometimes even give form to parts of ourselves for which we haven’t yet found the words.

Above all, I work with sensitivity, curiosity and respect. Every person and every story is different. My role is not to impose a version of you onto the photograph, but to notice, respond and create with you.

I’m there to guide when needed, to observe when something real is unfolding — and to help you be seen without asking you to become someone else first.

If you’d like to work together,
or have any other questions,
write me!

Still water with floating aquatic plants, submerged vegetation and small branches.
Bare trees in a forest with overcast sky and a light leak effect on the right side.
A bed with a black and white patterned bedspread, covered with various photographs, postcards, and pamphlets scattered across it. The wall behind the bed is wooden.