Photo of the Week: Bader Al Alsheikh

Saudi director, photographer and multidisciplinary designer Bader Al Alsheikh explores Saudi Arabia’s local culture and visual identity through photography, documentation and a range of artistic approaches. Based in Khobar, his practice is driven by a desire to preserve the moments, traditions and details that shape the places he calls home.

For this edition of ‘Photo of the Week’, Al Alsheikh selected an image taken in Khobar’s Al Khobar Civil Housing Park at 12:52 AM on the first night of Eid Al-Fitr in March 2026. Capturing a Samri gathering, the photograph reflects a tradition he has returned to document during Eid for years.

The image was also the final photograph he took that night. With his camera already switched off and tucked away, he looked to his left and saw a scene that immediately caught his attention. “It felt as though I had captured the image with my eyes before I even raised my camera,” he says.

For Al Alsheikh, photography has become a way of giving these fleeting moments a life beyond the present. “Every time I revisit an image, it brings back the same emotions, as if the moment had never truly passed.”

More than a record of an Eid gathering, the photograph reflects his ongoing relationship with the traditions around him, and his belief in the importance of preserving Saudi Arabia’s cultural heritage through the camera.