Red Bull Exclusive: Akl Yazbeck shares his inspirational photography journey

Qatar Living has teamed up with Red Bull Qatar to bring you some unique content and highlight some of the unsung heroes behind the amazing work that goes into capturing the golden moments of some of the Red Bull athletes.

In the series, we'll showcase five of the best photographs selected by the photographers themselves. We'll also use the opportunity to get to know the photographers.

For this week's exclusive, we caught up with Red Bull photographer Akl Yazbeck to find out what inspired him to be an extreme sports photographer.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself; where are you from, age, favorite discipline to shoot...

I’m Akl Yazbeck , 33 years old from Lebanon and I’m a sports photographer, but motorsports in specific has been a huge part of my photography career so far.

Q: How did you get into photography? Did you always have a passion for it growing up or is it something you discovered at an older age?

Well, I graduated with a double major of hotel management and business management and I worked in that field for almost 5 years. During my days off I was following and shooting rallying in Lebanon and somehow after my work I started shooting some basketball and other sports for a local Lebanese sports website.

Things evolved in 2012 and that was the turning point of my career when I left everything behind and followed my passion. Since then photography has been my full-time job.

Q: What is your advice to someone just starting out in photography?

Photography is a journey of building experiences. Nothing beats experience. You can take all the photography courses you want and read every book or article about photography, but nothing will help you take better photos than just going out there , doing it and learning your own personal lessons. So go out enjoy it and keep on shooting and shooting...

Q: How do you overcome creative blocks in your work?

Creative block is something that we always need to handle so looking around and getting inspired from some shared work could be really effective. Writing down ideas can be really helpful too.

Finding new locations for shoots and looking in unlikely places could be a key to create new ideas to execute.

Looking around on a location and never focusing only on what is in front of you, will help in not missing out on everything else that surrounds you and that might help in creating something new and out of the box.

 Now it's time to show you five of my favorite shots from my photography career for Red Bull so far.

1. Nasser Al Attiyah X Jorge Lorenzo

This photo is one of my favorite projects that I have executed with Red Bull Qatar! It was a last minute call so I packed and headed to Qatar before one night of the project. I had no time for a location check so we headed at dawn to the Sealine desert which was my first time to visit a desert. A magical place indeed where you can feel its awe and how about to add two world champions on top to shoot, Nasser Al Attiyah and Jorge Lorenzo - no margin for error!

Getting up to that hill, for an overview shot where the desert meets the sea, was something really challenging especially when walking through that soft sand. But with a small brief with a world champion like Nasser, he can give you exactly what you need to nail the shot from the first try. We had only a few hours to shoot and make out the best of the light out there and wrap up the project in one day. 

 2. Red Bull Car Park Drift - Qatar national finals 

This photo was taken during Red Bull Car Park Drift Qatar national finals where the event was held at night but the sunset light was extremely good and the Qatari skyline in the back made the best composition to shoot. Luckily Abdo Feghali had to test the track and I had to race with the sun to catch this photo at best light, background and showing the action.  

3. Dakar Rally

This shot was taken during Dakar 2020 which was one of the toughest project coverage of my whole career. Dealing with logistics and travel after each stage is on a whole different level of challenge. Heading to the helipad at dawn with minimal equipment in hand is something to consider!

Aerial shots are my favorite, especially in terms of giving a different perspective for the shot from being on the ground.

Here we can see the 3-time Dakar Champion Carlos Sainz bashing the dunes of the Saudi desert with his mini cooper X-raid. The beautiful desert under the sun can give you lots of lines and patterns which continuously change, affecting the shadows and colors of the sands!

4. Kenny Belaey

This was during a photoshoot with Kenny Belaey for Red Bull Lebanon in Faqra. Our main idea was to shoot in the old roman ruins but logistically it wasn’t feasible due to the festival they were having in the old Roman Temple. So we had to go around the area and find an alternative location but surprisingly, Kenny can make any rocky ground a great playground to ride his trial bike! So I had to setup my lights quickly and go all in for a great shot over the rocks.

5. Dimitris Kyrsanidis Parkour stunt

Sequence shots can bring life to any picture showing the action sequence of the athlete performing his trick.

In this photo Dimitris was performing his stunt jumping over the lobby fountain in a hotel in Beirut. Shooting indoors makes the light conditions a bit harder so I had to set up my flashes to highlight him and keep the surroundings in the shadows. The marble of the fountain was really slippery so we had to try several times until we got the perfect shot.

Stay tuned for our next feature in this series next week. If you like what you see, follow @aklyazbeck and @redbullqatar on Instagram.

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