An optical engineer based in California.

Hi there! Tis I, Yahya! Welcome to my website. Who am I? Well, I am one of the 8+ billion people on the planet that tries to be useful, while enjoying life on this beautiful planet that we have been given! If you want to know a bit about my story, then please read through the paragraphs below. If you do not have time to read, then skip to the last paragraph!

What do I do for a living? I am an optical engineer. I design nanophotonic structures that change the way we interact with the outside world. In my spare time, I am an adventurer, photographer, and nature enthusiast. My primary interests in photography are focused on landscape, landscape astrophotography (love it!), cityscape, and creative photography. But above all, my primary area of photography is taking panoramas. I love the wide field of view that panoramas provide and I try to incorporate them in most of the photographs that I take. I take panoramas with 20-mm lenses, as well as 200-mm lenses. Taking panoramas with long-focal-length lenses is absolutely challenging, which is why you don’t see too many photographers doing it, but I love it! You would see quite a bit of panoramas on the website.

While I take photography extremely seriously when I am outdoors, my main focus is on enjoying the nature, which is why I usually do not do focus-stacking for my photos (our eyes do not see things all in focus anyways), or do not spend weeks to edit a photo. I visit somewhere and take the best shot that I can take at that particular moment, given the light conditions. Of course, a lot of planning goes into my trips but my photography philosophy is “do the best you can in the shortest amount of time.”

My first experience with photography was when I was a small boy, playing with my mom’s Yashica camera. It was a film camera and we were limited to taking 36 photos per film. So photography was very expensive, yet so inconclusive! We could not know whether the photo that we took was in focus or not, was overexposed or under, etc. As technology progressed and nanophotonics became a force to be reckoned with (well, hello!), digital cameras made their way into our daily lives and taking photography as a skill, art, or passion skyrocketed. My first digital camera (not counting my phone) was a camera I used to borrow from my school when I was a graduate student and I was so happy about it. Why? Because that was the best camera that I could afford at the time. After graduating, I finally was able to buy my own camera gear and I could not be happier! I could shoot my photos without having to worry about returning the camera on time, not knowing the specifics of the camera that I was borrowing, or being limited to a certain focal length.

So, having said all of that, I finally decided to put a little bit more professionalism into my photography and put some photos that I have taken throughout the years on my website. Sometimes, for every photo that I put on the website, I have taken a hundred shots and gone through them one by one, edited some, looked at them at different times, and then came back to them to see which one I like. Please remember that if I like a photo, that necessarily does not mean that others will like it as well. A photo might look pretty ordinary to someone, but for me, it might have a memory attached to it that makes it special to me. So, if you think a photo is not good or could be better, do not hesitate to let me know. That helps me get better at photography.

And last but not the least, I try to update the website to the best of my ability with not only photos, but also pieces of information about how knowing some basic fundamentals of optics can help you elevate your photography to the next level. This website is the only place that I post contents online.

Please contact me directly for projects, collaboration (I can always learn taking photos next to another photographer), tips on how to improve photography, or to inquire about purchasing my work.

yahyamphotography@gmail.com