Samy Al Olabi

Samy Al Olabi, Egyptian Syrian multi-award-winning photographer who is currently based in Dubai, UAE. Inspired by his love for nature and night skies, he reaches for the stars from the dark corners of Arabia. Astronomy, Arts and Adventure have been his greatest passion since childhood. When he grew up and took Construction Management as a source of living, his devotion and commitment to his passion eventually led him to where he is right now.

Western Deserts of Egypt

Samy is a true believer that breaking the trends and thinking outside the box is what every photographer should do to stand out with his work. Now and then, he starts a conceptual photography project. He sometimes mixes abstract and miniatures with astrophotography using technical complex and lengthy processes of focus stacking, exposure stacking in addition to star stacking, resulting in some amazing photographs. One of his recent projects, “Nowhere Land,” was globally acclaimed amongst international entities, it went viral and got published worldwide.

In addition to his conceptual photographs, Al Olabi produced some beautiful panoramas of the night skies and deep sky objects with a diversity of compositions, some of which became backgrounds for Microsoft and Apple operating systems.

His work & photography articles are regularly featured in various international magazines & newspapers, with most notable contributions in Practical photography Magazine, Petapixel, CNN, DIY photography, NPhoto. This is in addition to some top national magazines & newspapers. Samy also showed up as a guest on multiple national & local TV channels & His work was also exhibited in multiple exhibitions across the United Arab Emirates.

Al Olabi won multiple local & international awards, the most notable ones were the 1st Place Winner in UAE Environmental Photography contest 2014, 2nd Place Winner in Fujairah International Photography Awards 2016 & the 4th Place Winner in UAE Heritage Photography contest 2015.

He was honoured by His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah during the Islamic Art Festival of Sharjah in 2015 Exhibition “ Light & Shades”.

Nowhere Land

Throughout the past three years, Al Olabi has been spreading his passion in Astronomy & Astrophotography; he conducted more than 30 lectures & workshops with a notable collaboration with Nikon School, HIPA Union of Arab Photographers, Emirates Photography Society, Xposure, MAS, KHDA & others.

His partnership with Apple in their Moon Photography campaign led to worldwide publication in multiple international & local magazines & printed on Billboards. He also led several important Astronomical event coverage, such as the partial Lunar eclipse of January 2018, the longest total lunar eclipse in the century in July 2018 & the Annular Solar Eclipse of 26 Dec 2019. These events were covered by media & newspapers.

More than just a source of knowledge, he inspires audiences & participants with the stories behind the lens of his breathtaking photographs. Al Olabi is currently working on a project branded “Heavens and Earth”, the project is a conceptual journey through space & time reimagined through different forms of visual arts.