Watch: The wildlife photographer capturing Qatar's hidden animal kingdom

euronews (in English)

Hamad Al-Khulaifi, a former wildlife hunter, is dedicated to protecting and raising awareness for Qatar's unique biodiversity.

Transcript

00:00The best thing in wildlife photography is to spend time with yourself, to be alone and

00:10to be with these animals and birds, to learn more about them and to see these different

00:16nations and how they live like humans.

00:21They love, they migrate, they care, they feed and they fight.

00:28It's really nice to go out and feel the nature.

00:32It's something like out of your imagination when you can see it in front of your eyes.

00:38My name is Hamed Khlaifi, I'm a Qatari wildlife photographer.

00:42My journey began as a hunter.

00:58We used to always go out to the desert and see lots of birds and animals.

01:04But when I started to photograph them, I thought I will change my life from a hunter to a wildlife

01:10photographer to see the beauty of nature from my lens.

01:16Qatar is a semi-desert and it's really hot so you cannot see lots of animals in Qatar.

01:24I love to go out, it's like a challenge when you go and observe some animals and try to

01:29get closer to them because they are so shy and they are afraid of humans because they

01:34thought that we will harm them and kill them.

01:38So this is the challenge and this is what I love when I go out.

01:42I try to get closer to them and build trust between me and them.

01:51Mostly you can see the Arabian red fox and also there is the wild rabbit, the gerbil

01:58and the sand cat also.

02:00There's lots of animals like the hedgehog and some reptiles.

02:05My favorite animal is the sand cat because it's a really rare animal and you cannot see

02:11normally.

02:12Whenever you go out, you need to really search for it and be patient to see it.

02:17They are so good at hiding.

02:20You need lots of patience in wildlife photography, especially when you are trying to get a video

02:25or photographing an animal or a bird.

02:28Maybe you will spend more than four or five hours in the same place without any movement.

02:36Mostly what I'm using is a handheld camera.

02:40Sometimes I use the tripod if I want to stable my videos.

02:47Sometimes I use my drones to get the aerial shots to do some beauty shots about nature.

02:56There are some far spots that you cannot reach.

02:59So that's why I use the drone so I can get closer.

03:06After I take the pictures and the videos, I like to edit them and see what kind of pictures that I've got.

03:13I do some short videos so I can upload them on my accounts on social media.

03:19The editing will take some time to correct the colors, crop the image and remove some small spots.

03:32Wildlife photography is really difficult.

03:34Many people would say it's only a button and then you can just squeeze the button and you will get the shot.

03:40But you need to learn and you need to go somewhere with the conditions where you can take some pictures.

03:46When you are framing a bird or animal, you should at least check the background, the area surrounding and the habitat.

03:55So all these challenges, they are so difficult to get in one shot.

04:01The most challenging part in wildlife photography is the weather because it's too hot in Qatar.

04:07Sometimes even your gears that you are using will just heat up while you are filming.

04:12Sometimes your camera will be wet.

04:15When it's windy, it's so dusty here.

04:18All these things will affect your pictures while you are photographing.

04:22In my time in photography, I have taken thousands of pictures.

04:27A photo that I'm really proud of is the kingfisher while he's hunting small fish in the water.

04:34This was really a challenge shot for me.

04:37There's another photo for the red fox while he's whining.

04:41These kinds of behaviors, they are really good moments to take.

04:49For the next generation, I'm trying to do more lectures so they can learn about photography.

04:55About wildlife, about birds.

04:58Why we should take care of them and why we should learn more about them and nature.

05:04I hope that my lessons get as far as possible to these people so they can save these birds and animals in the wild.

05:12If I have to give some advice to inspire the beginners of wildlife photography,

05:18I would say go out, get your gears, try to get some shots and you will learn a lot about nature.

05:42www.circlelineartschool.com

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