Broken Wings: Zouhir El Messaoudi’s 28 Portraits of Everyday Morocco
A street-portrait series made largely in Tetouan that pauses on faces usually passed by, showing quiet vulnerability, resilience, and everyday presence.
Useful takeaways from this story.
Broken Wings is a 28-image portrait series by Moroccan photographer Zouhir El Messaoudi that focuses on everyday people in Moroccan streets, mainly Tetouan.
El Messaoudi’s method emphasizes brief human connection before the shot, producing natural, unpolished portraits that convey a mix of loneliness, resilience, tenderness, and hope.
El Messaoudi began photography in 2013 and centers his work on street portraits and the stories hidden behind everyday faces.
The useful part
Broken Wings: 28 Powerful Portraits That Reveal the Human Side of Morocco by Zouhir ELmessaoudi. Venkat Prakash Know more → Walk through the narrow streets of Morocco, and you'll see much more than colorful doors, bustling markets, old walls, and sunlit alleyways. Moroccan photographer Zouhir Elmessaoudi has made it his mission to look a little closer.
How it works
- Created largely in Tetouan, the project brings together intimate portraits of vendors, workers, children, women, elderly people, and others encountered during Zouhir's journeys through Moroccan streets.
- The experience eventually developed into a larger body of work exploring vulnerability, emotion, and resilience among people encountered on Moroccan streets.
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What to take from it
His photography series Broken Wings is built around that simple but powerful idea: every stranger has a story. Then, for a brief moment, he lets the camera become a bridge between two strangers. Instagram Facebook #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 Broken Wings Begins With a Human Connection There's a big difference between photographing someone and truly seeing them.
Example or evidence
- Their circumstances may be completely different, but the photographs bring them together.
- Instead, they carry the little imperfections that make portraits believable: tired eyes, weathered skin, uncertain expressions, subtle smiles, and moments of silence.
- Its alleyways seem to create intimate stages where ordinary life unfolds without much fuss.
- As someone who doesn't live permanently in Tetouan, he approaches the city as an outsider.
Details worth keeping
Each carrying a private world that rarely makes it into the frame. These aren't polished studio portraits designed to hide imperfections. Look at the faces, and you might notice loneliness.
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