Adri Ou, Portraits from the Levant (PORTRAIT 2024)

A young girl from Baalbek who, on spotting me with a camera, cheekily asked me for portraits. A matriarch of a roadside saaj stall off Apamea, who fed us breakfast. A man who took us on the waters of the Euphrates/Tigris delta in the sweltering heat of summer in Iraq. I grew up watching the Middle East on my television screen, and the experience of being there was wholly different. A selection of portraits in an attempt to capture the confidence, generosity, and verve of a people. Their kindness, months on, continues to humble me.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.