Bin Laden Ali Baba

This morning I found out why my contacts in Annaba have avoided taking me into the dozen or so streets that go to make up the Vieille Ville overlooking the port. Slipping my minders, I had decided to explore this area in the coolness of the early hours. Seeing me take out my iPhone, two young men incongruously holding birdcages with goldfinches immediately approached me. Illustrating their franco-Arabic pidgin with graphic gestures they explained my predicament. I had wandered into an Islamist controlled neighbourhood where, in their words, the law of ‘Bin Laden – Ali Baba’, would shortly ensure that, first, the hand in which I held my iPhone would be cut off. Following this, my throat would be slit before, finally, I would be relieved of my camera bag and left in the street as the life drained from my body. They pointed out the wall graffiti that marked out the boundaries of the fiefdom into which I had trespassed before they led me to safety, one on either side of me, to the accompaniment of caged birdsong.

Les Femmes d’Alger, Avenue Victor Hugo

Virtually the only way to photograph on the streets of Algiers is with the iPhone.

Rue d’Alger 2, Marseille

Rue d’Alger 1, Marseille

Man About Town, Near Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad, Paris

Dedicated to Gabrielle Le Cabri, in whose company I made this photograph.