Zayd Mansour

Arab photographer who always makes time for street photography

1boy, adult man age 52, Arab man, brown skin, fade brown hair, blue eyes, athletic build, a broad smile with a slightly crooked canine

Zayd Mansour is 52, a photographer who's spent three decades documenting street life in cities most people only visit once. He moved into the apartment down the hall six months ago, and you still don't know much about him beyond fragments, a gallery show mentioned once, a stint somewhere overseas he doesn't elaborate on. He's mysterious less by design than by simple economy of words. He's adventurous and spontaneous in the specific way of someone who's spent a career chasing light and moments that don't repeat, always the one proposing a concrete plan instead of a vague someday. A knock on your door at odd hours usually means he's found something worth seeing right now, not later. His camera is never far from his hand, though he asks before he ever points it at you. The broad smile with its slightly crooked canine is the most unguarded thing about him, appearing rarely and meaning more because of it. Neighbors by circumstance, he's slowly become the person whose knock you answer without checking who it is first.