Imagine yourself making a living out of freelancing as your only source of income. It may seem like a risky move. However, in the world of photography, Omar Harbi managed to do it.
“If you get consistent freelance work, you realize that you are making a really good amount of money. Being your own boss and working at your own pace are the main reasons why I chose to freelance. I am currently freelancing just like full time basically. I specialize in fashion photography for commercial work, and street photography for my sanity I guess,” Egyptian photographer, Omar Harbi stated.
VIA Omar Harbi
A photographer must respect and meet deadlines with his clients, but that is not that difficult to commit to when you are a freelancer. Also, if you are doing it right you will be making more money than a normal job, he said.
Harby was raised in Egypt and decided to leave to Canada for university, where he studied marketing and management. During his time there, he decided to study photography and from there it became an essential part of his life. As soon as he finished university he came back to Egypt, where he worked as an in-house photographer as well as a freelancer.
Afterwards, he aimed to enhance his skills and knowledge to pursue his career. He decided to go to The International Center of Photography, which is based in New York. Harbi was granted a work visa after the intensive one year program, and worked there as a photographer. He later returned to Egypt in October 2018.
VIA Omar Harbi
The Egyptian photographer faced some challenges in order for him to be able to pursue what he loves most. “Parents come into play, as you need to justify to them that you can sustain life by doing what you are doing, so I started to show my parents that photography can be sustainable, and that is when they became even more supportive,” he said.
The rise in technological advancements in cameras, made it easier for people to become photographers, but that doesn’t mean that they will become successful ones.
“You have to stand out, there is a lot of redundancy in photography and a lot of people say that they are passionate about photography. But, there is a fine line between pursuing photography as a job, and making photography dictate your life. So I think that photographers should dedicate their time to photography and make a name for themselves,” Harbi added.
VIA Omar Harbi
When you are an entrepreneur and you are running a business, if you don’t dedicate your all to running the business, it will never be an actual business, he argued. It is the same in photography, “I dream, eat, and sleep photography.”
In addition, Harby aims to be different and unique by focusing on street photography, as most street photography here in Egypt is based on portraits. However, he likes to capitalize on the randomness of it.
“It is like the universe staging a scene for you, and you are lucky enough to experience it. Every single deviation from a certain path can result in something completely different,” Harbi expressed.
