In this paper, I center the Algerian Revolution from a visual lens, arguing alongside Daho Djerbal that Algerian nationalists produced images that contributed to shaping their self-image after 130 years during which photography, and visual production, was an overwhelmingly French affair. Simultaneously, Algerian visual production became a major strategic tool countering France’s colonial grip, garnering domestic and international support for Independence. What can be learned about this role of photography by looking at the work of Mohamed Kouaci, one of a handful of Algerian photographers to document the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962) on the FLN (Front de libération nationale) side? In Tunisia, Kouaci was Head of the photography service at the Information Ministry of the GPRA (Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne) and photo editor of the FLN newspaper El Moudjahid (1958-1962). His work, I argue, produced mainly in Tunisia, in close proximity with Algerian rebels, displaced villagers and orphaned children, offers rich, layered and complex visions of an Algerian Nation in the making that complicate and destabilize single hegemonic narratives of the Revolution. After reading attentively a selection of Kouaci images of Algerian refugees returning from Tunisia in 1962 and the first days of Independence in Algiers, I move on to juxtapose the photographs of this return to the first images produced by the French during their 1830 invasion of Algeria. Borrowing from Zarobell and Azoulay, I read these same images against panorama drawings by French officer and painter, Jean-Charles Langlois. By comparing Kouaci’s multiplicity of points-of-views to Langlois’ attempt at suturing fragmented images into a seamless unique point-of-view through his panoramas, I center the question of visuality within colonial conquest by reading together two moments in Algerian history when new national representations are produced visually. I argue that the multi-layered photographer-militant’s work of Kouaci offers a strategy of visual liberation, in contrast to the officer-panoramist, Langlois, bound to create a tangible Algerian reality for a craving French audience, bringing the visual conquest of Algeria in the heart of Paris. I close by demonstrating how a more in-depth analysis of Kouaci’s visual production, both situated within and read apart from the FLN’s grand international strategy, expands our understanding of visuality producing both central and peripheral, perhaps more radical, possibilities for a new Algeria, many still available to explore in an ongoing struggle for true decolonization.