1980, is a British-Egyptian photographer based between London and Cairo who works as a freelance news photographer and on long-term personal projects. Born in Worcestershire, England, to Egyptian parents, she grew up between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. She studied journalism and political science at the University of Georgia, graduating in 2002, and began her career as a newspaper photographer with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

In 2006 she became a freelance photographer in order to focus on independent projects. She later completed a research fellowship at the University of Oxford in 2009 and earned an MA in art and media practice from the University of Westminster in 2011.

Photobooks are central to her practice. Her first book, In the Shadow of the Pyramids (2015), documents the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and combines photographs of protests in Cairo with personal imagery and family archives. The book was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Later projects include Beyond Here Is Nothing (2017) and A Star in the Sea (2019), which continue her exploration of identity, memory, and political upheaval.

Her work often examines questions of identity, belonging, and social change, reflecting her transnational background and engagement with contemporary political and environmental issues.

Reference
Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), English edition. Retrieved March 15, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_El-Tantawy