Mirna Abass Captures 'Decisive Moment' in Egyptian Port of Ezbet El Borg

Egyptian photographer Mirna Abass shot his image Freedom in 2024 using an iPhone 13 in Ezbet El Borg, a shipbuilding and fishing port in the Damietta governorate where the Nile meets the Mediterranean. Abass, who works as an agricultural engineer and belongs to the Egyptian Camera Crew photography club, was on a group walk through the shipyard when he noticed a teenage fisher leaping between vessels. He framed two contrasting boats side by side and waited for the boy to jump into view, an approach shaped by his admiration for Henri Cartier-Bresson and the concept of the decisive moment. Abass said the human figure conveyed the scale of the ships, and he described the leap from the white vessel to the colourful one as almost an escape from pale life to fruitful life. He called his home city a heaven for street, travel and documentary photography, citing fishers and their nets alongside boats being built, maintained and painted. After the shot, he showed the photograph to the boy, calling it their own decisive moment.