Beirut is a city of conflicts, and by this, I don't only mean those brought about by military means.



Lebanon has 18 officially recognised religions that don't quite coexist, although food seems to provide some common ground. Without the usual transport infrastructure expected of a cosmopolitan destination, Beirut is particularly car-dependent. Getting anywhere involves engaging in a daily battle with traffic. And whilst an array of bars-cum-clubs-cum-eateries-cum-bookshops would be just as at home in the most achingly trendy corners of any city, there are those people and places that find themselves physically marginalised. Plus of course, the poignantly scarred urban picturesque that loosely make up the psychological territory of the Green Line. The lack of political stability has left this has-been "Paris of the Orient" simultaneously with palpable senses of urgency and absence.



Beyond Beirut, there are glimpses of a weirdly familiar and clinical orphanage, and the juxtapositions of life within an old town labyrinth.



Photolog Beirut+ is by no means a complete portrait. It merely serves as a journalistic sketchbook of an intense and chaotic 10 days of scratching Lebanon's surface.