A good photograph can frame a moment and invoke that elusive sense of beauty, which is not always visible to the naked eye. Still, a great picture is capable of capturing infinity in a snapshot. These are the sort of photographs that celebrity photographer, Hikmat Wehbi, lives for. They're the reason his passion for photography remains as acute and undimmed as it's been since he was a young boy, and why he views the camera as an extension of himself. As Hikmat himself said, "The language of photography is the language of images, one which speaks to us all, without any need for translation.
Hikmat started after landing a job as a press photographer on the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. His ability to use the medium of photography to tell a story was hard-hitting. He won many awards and earned a name for himself. For Hikmat, photography has always been about finding the true beauty and art in his source material and rendering it accessible to a broader audience.
Hikmat shared his insights about photography, "The lens of a camera is free of prejudice or ignorance. It brings no emotional baggage or preconceptions to the subject matter. It shoots, and therefore it is capable of discovering a universal and hidden beauty. When I look through the lens of my camera, everything is transfigured, and my job is to capture that."
Over the last few decades, he has followed in the footsteps of his idol, Helmut Newton. Wehbi ignored rigid social conventions and built an impressive portfolio of engaging and striking pictures that seek to make the viewer question and reconsider concepts. Wehbi's innovative nature led him to transform W Studio into a leading production house in Dubai. W Studios has worked with clients like Google, Dubai Parks and Resorts, Chanel, Dior, Carolina Herrera, L'Oreal, and others. Wehbi and his tech-savvy team specialize in videography, social media content, ad campaigns, and YouTube series with everything catered in-house. It has earned its place as a market leader in the realm of content creation. W Studios has received extensive appreciation, awards and accolades for their outstanding work. In 2017, one of Hikmat's clients won an Effie Award through a work collaboration with W Studio for Google.
Hikmat remains a firm believer in the adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. He explained, "I have worked on a lot of client briefs, but if you want to stay true to your art, you need to remain focused on what you are trying to capture. Never allow your creative process to be confined or limited by another person's directions or stereotypical views about beauty's nature. Whether its photography or content creation, for me, it is all about expression."
The photographer added, "I carry my camera with me wherever I go. You never know when you will accidentally stumble across that certain something that will take your breath away. The possibilities are endless. Wherever the camera leads me, I'll continue to follow."
