“Algeria is poetic. The light, the people, the culture – everything. If you take the time and really look, you're gonna see it everywhere.” Get yourself someone who looks at you the way Khaled Mechri looks at Algeria because this self-taught visual artist captures the country with such a softness, it’s impossible to not fall in love with it yourself.

“Photography is poetry. One scene can tell a lot of stories so I try to let the viewer interpret the scene as they wish, [rather than] add a caption and impose meaning,” he says, referencing the posts on his popular account, Algerographe. “It has many layers and I want people to view the work the way that they read poetry. A scene will tell one story to someone and another to a different person. It’s all related to your past and how you see life, you know.”

Mechri was artistic as a child, always painting and drawing at school. But it was after graduating that, inspired by the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rovert Capa, Sol Leiter and Steve McCurry, that he picked up his first camera and found his true calling. “When I was 18 or19 I had a little camera and started to enjoy photography,” he remembers. “Over time I began to work as a photographer at Echourouk newspaper and learned a lot on the job about every aspect of photography – photojournalism, fashion, food etc. And at the same time, I was doing street photography on the side.”

It’s his short street films, documenting Algeria in all of its unfiltered splendor, that has garnered the artist a legion of fans. These daily details around Algiers, from a roadside game of chess to a dip in the ocean, feel both nostalgic and deeply resonant. “I created Algerographe as a diary to practice photography in small videos of 10 seconds. The composition is how I would shoot stills but I use a phone to capture the video to prove that everybody can do it. I am opening people's eyes to photography and art in Algeria.”

Not everyone is lucky enough to visit Algeria. The country has been historically quite closed off and has a reciprocal visa programme, which means some tourists stay away. What Mechri is doing offers people a glimpse in. “I want to show people that they can see everyday moments in a different way. I see it as my duty to showcase Algeria and while I could reveal only the perfect sides of the country, what I'm trying to say is that Algeria, as raw as it is, is beautiful too.”