It won it as the best photo in aerial photography

Bashir Moukarzel: I waited 6 months for the fog to take a photo of the "Dubai Frame"

• Photography: Mustafa Qasimi

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The Lebanese photographer specializing in aerial photography, Bashir Moukarzel, believes that a professional photographer creates the image and does not take it. In his speech to Emirates Today, he pointed to a set of factors that determine the importance and beauty of the image, which requires a lot of study of location, timing and weather conditions.

The photographer who won the best photo award for taking a photo of the Dubai frame in the midst of fog, talked about his start in the world of photography with a drone camera years ago, and how he followed his passion in the world of image and his love for cities and cultural forms in them, as he was attracted by tall buildings in Dubai and sand dunes as well as international cities that It bears in its form the ancient and civilized faces

Regarding the photo he took in 2019, and won it in the aerial photography competition in the category "Constructions", where he highlighted the Dubai Frame standing tall in the fog, Moukarzel said: “The photo was taken at the end of 2019, and the Dubai Frame was on its first day of opening, and I waited for the shape of The fog that I want and its location within the frame for a period of up to six months. Every time, the fog descended and I found it higher than the frame until I was able to take the picture while it was lower than the frame and from an angle where the void appears in the background, while the sun is on one side. ”

He pointed out that the timing of taking the picture in general is important, explaining that he studies the timing of the image and the nature of the climate that will dominate during the filming period, the wind speed, the amount of dust and the extent of vision, then he goes to the shooting site and studies the location, and how the "drones" will fly without being above people. Or in a way that leads to its loss of transmission.

Drone camera

Moukarzel considered that studying the factors related to taking the image is what leads to the success of the image and requires a lot of time, because the actual work on the image takes place before it is taken, as well as the time required to work on modifying the image.

About his beginning in the world of photography, specifically urban photography, Moukarzel pointed out that he was one of the first to buy "drones" in Dubai, and he began using them five years ago, noting that the presence of tall buildings was an incentive to use them in photography, and that he won the first prize for capturing cities. The starting point was my work filming fashion and beauty-related content, but also for unique locations in Dubai.

He pointed out that his first experience was gained from the accumulation of experience in dealing with the drone, explaining that the drone camera carries some challenges in working on it, there are a set of factors that must be adhered to during work on photography, because of the interference between the transmission and the surroundings, because the place and possibility must be studied Maintaining the transmission during the shooting period, then in the post the camera that must be kept straight whatever the weather is loaded with air and dust, and the direction of the wind.

Moukarzel is attracted to buildings in Dubai, indicating that he went to photograph nature in other global cities, and also took pictures of a group of cities that include modern and old buildings, and Moukarzel considered that when he felt the need to go to a city with a different history, he used to use his work With "Google Earth", his choice falls on cities that carry something different from contemporary urban cities. In Italy and France, there are old buildings bordering on modernity, and this is what made him pick them up, while he challenged himself a little to photograph nature in the Philippines.

The guiding city

Iceland is considered one of the countries that Moukarzel aspires to photograph, pointing out that the sun in this country remains on the same line throughout the day, as the light does not differ in strength during the day, and the night only reaches four hours, and there are many natural spaces, besides volcanoes, while The closest city to it after Dubai remains Siena in Italy, as it won the second prize in this city, and it is a very old city that does not enter cars and has a special character.

While describing Dubai as the guiding city for him, in it he set out to photograph and his works became similar to the nature of the city, explaining that the desert attracts him a lot besides the towers, as the desert is a place devoid of people and has a vacuum, and therefore photography from the air carries a lot of contradiction between the congestion of cities and the vast desert emptiness that seems full .

The pictures presented by Moukarzel carry a lot of life even though he captures cities and inanimate objects, and he saw that this life comes from the composition through which he tries to aim at a specific side of the city, and he also realizes how to choose the colors and lighting that provides the city with a kind of warmth that makes people interact with the image. And feel it.

As for the technology that changed the whole world, and now allows everyone to photograph through the phone, Moukarzel said that it does not make photographers because people do not come to their photos, and this is why professional photographers are still different because they spend a lot of time taking the photo, so a professional photographer does not photograph but rather creates the image.

Awards and ambition

Aerial photographer Bashir Moukarzel considers himself still an amateur in photography, and he aspires to travel around the world without staying long in one place, in order to present a group of distinctive pictures of different places that were not captured properly.

Moukarzel won a series of awards, the first of which was in 2017, when he won an award in National Geographic for the urban photography category, and in 2018 he won a prize in Siena for a picture he took in the Philippines of a shark, and in 2020 he won the Dubai Frame Photo Award.

Lebanese Photographer: a professional photographer who creates the picture, not takes it.

Bashir Moukarzel:

I study the timing of the picture, the nature of the climate, the wind speed, the amount of dust and the extent of visibility, and how the "drone" will fly without being above people.

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