Living in and loving Beirut

 

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A smoking hookah, a beat-up car, concrete everywhere, colourful plants, the aroma of coffee, idle cranes, sprawling trees, declarations of love plastered on its walls… Wandering the streets of this city is like a journey to another world. A world of chaos and beauty, of fawda1 and generosity, of violence and human warmth.

 

Beirut is a city like no other. Not exactly beautiful, but utterly captivating. Writers – of all nationalities – have written extensively about it, and each has made it a point of honour to reveal their piece of the puzzle in an attempt to help the world understand the nature of the Lebanese capital. And photographers do the same. Laurent Denimal – whom I met there in 2009 – also has his piece of the puzzle. And it is this that he shares with you in this photographic series.

 

I myself lived in Beirut for 18 years, capturing the city in books and, like him, preserving it in photographic series. I am far away from it today and I miss it terribly. Looking at Laurent’s images one by one, I am transported back to those little details that catch the eye, that make you want to tell stories of Beirut from a human perspective. Because that is what photography is for: to reveal what we might otherwise miss along the way.

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David Hury, Paris, April 2026​

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1 disorder, mess