Photographer Tanya Traboulsi left Lebanon for Austria in the 80s as a child during the civil war, and spent years missing the shores she was forced to sail away from. Now, having been once again based in Beirut for the past 20 years, she’s committed to celebrating its everyday events through her lens. Her book, “A Sea Apart,” shows the city in all its golden light, and features excerpts from her diary over recent decades as the city has faced war and destruction. Here, Alexander Durie explores her relationship with the city she calls the love of her life, and the joy her work is bringing to the Lebanese diaspora around the world who are often forced to follow its story on the news.
From the civil war between 1975 and 1990, to the 2006 war with Israel, the people’s uprising in 2019 against austerity and corruption, the disastrous port explosion in 2020 that shattered most of the city, up to the ongoing Israeli attacks that occur almost daily since September 2024, Beirut has been devastated time and time again. These events have been thoroughly documented by both Lebanese and foreign photographers and journalists. From the outside, one might be forgiven to assume that destroyed buildings or displaced people are what characterize Beirut’s visual landscape.
But anyone who’s been to or is from Lebanon will passionately argue the opposite. And anyone who follows the work of photographer Tanya Traboulsi will provide ample evidence that the Beirut of foreign newspapers is not the Beirut that Lebanese people know, love and aspire towards—one without war and with the promise of a safe future. That would be the Beirut of bright summer sunsets, of old men lounging in shisha bars watching TV, of teenage boys somersaulting off rocks into the Mediterranean Sea and elegant women showing off their home-cooked meals or their beloved jewelry.
That is the Beirut that Traboulsi knows by heart, and that she photographs with love and tenderness. At 47 years old, the Lebanese-Austrian photographer, who has been based in Beirut for the past 20 years, says that she’s finally found her visual language. It is one where Beirut is her “muse” and her “source of inspiration.”
Traboulsi describes Beirut as “a very old strong woman,” full of wisdom and tenacity. Rather than documenting scenes of destruction, Traboulsi captures moments of stillness and tranquility in the city, whether it be by the sea, in cafés or on balconies. These are usually taken around sunset or sunrise, particularly early in the morning, as “it’s very calm and it feels like the city is yours,” Traboulsi tells me.
“I don’t document historical events, just the everyday ones,” Traboulsi says. The photographer’s eye has focused on Beirut as a central character for a few years, but it was in March this year that UK-based book publisher Chris Neophytou from Out of Place Books contacted her with the offer of making a photo book from the images she posts regularly on Instagram. The two began talking, and Traboulsi felt that this proposal “came at the right moment.” The result is a view of a serene Beirut through the eyes of a local, colored with belonging and nostalgia, with all the photos taken in 2024 but prior to the current Israeli attacks.
The artist grew up between two different countries and cultures—her Lebanese father and Austrian mother met at a ski station in Lebanon in the 1970s. Her creative style is drawn from the experience of leaving Lebanon for Austria as a child when the civil war broke out. “There was always this huge insecurity and anxiety that I grew up with," she says, remembering how she would try to follow news from afar. Yet she grew “obsessed” with Lebanese culture through Fairuz records and historical archives about the war. This is part of the reason why Traboulsi remains in Beirut today, despite escalating danger: “Here at least it’s home. I have my life, as much of a normal life one can still have… I feel so happy every time I walk by the sea for example. This happiness, it's a deep happiness that sits within me.”
Traboulsi started taking photos as a child on small film cameras, and kept many archives over the years, including diary excerpts. A few of these are included in this new book, including extracts from 1983, 2009 and 2024, recording her changing but constant creative relationship with Beirut. In 1983, she writes: “I can still see Beirut slowly vanishing at the edge of its shore,” as her family departs the country by boat. In summer 2024, Traboulsi writes: “I feel safe here.” While in a 2009 photo taken on the waterfront, Traboulsi describes how seeing the city from afar brings back harsh memories of leaving Beirut as a child. “This whole sea was between me and Lebanon when I was in Austria, so I felt like it’s a sea apart between me and home.”
This sense of being split between several places—glued to news of your homeland from another country—is one many people can relate to, especially Lebanese in the diaspora nowadays. It’s thus unsurprising that Traboulsi’s calming photos resonate so strongly with people on social media, as a contrast to current events. Traboulsi says that at the start of the war she “felt paralyzed,” unable to take photos and that sharing her usual images felt meaningless. But eventually she did, and received a flurry of positive responses, particularly from Lebanese people abroad. One person told her: “Your images keep me alive.” Another said: “Please keep posting this content. It makes me feel home.”
Apart from her daily photo walks, Traboulsi teaches a course called “The Photographic Image” at the American University of Beirut. Prior to the Israeli attacks, she would encourage her students to use Beirut as their inspiration just like she does, and not “abide by the rules” of photography. “You should always find your own language. Don’t copy others, as it will never be yourself,” she says.
Her students and any photographer can undoubtedly learn from her rootedness and attachment to home, and how it seeps through her images. “Beirut is the love of my life,” she tells me. “I can walk the same street a thousand times, and I will always find something else to photograph, and it will always feel different… I can go on forever.”
Traboulsi’s photos resonate so much because they focus not on the devastation Beirut endures, but on the day-to-day life that continues despite it all: the people who remain in the face of adversity, and the lasting scenes of joy from Dalieh, the Raouché rocks, or from Beirut’s Corniche—places all bordering the Mediterranean Sea, that constant source of calm in a seemingly endless storm.