Film Courage: When was the first time you picked up a camera? Walid Azami, Photographer: Okay so the first time I picked
up a camera professionally um I'm gonna backtrack just a little bit I work with
Madonna and I worked on a world tour and I befriended a friend of mine now a
really good friend Jamie King who was a creative director of the tour and like
so many other artists and he so just glazed over that real fast so he would
watch me come in and look at everything like everything I would like inspect
like crazy because I knew where I was I knew that I'm gonna learn so much from
this woman and I left that job and I left that job and out of the blue he
just texted me one day he's like hey well lead how are you let's go get
dinner I want to know what you're up to and so I went to dinner with him and I
drove up from Anaheim at that I think knows and whatever Anaheim our Fullerton
one of those two cities in Orange County at the time and I drove up to LA and I
met him for dinner but what he did not know is that I was dead broke broke
broke broke okay and this is pretty much right at the birth of the 2008 Great
Recession so I had quit being a music video directors assistant I had done
some PA jobs I was the worst PA you could ever hire on I mean the amount of
effort I put into not looking busy it was exhausting and I thought just do the
work you know but like trying to walk back and forth like look busy without
really doing this stuff so Jamie had called me he's like I want to know what
you're up to and he had a plan and he had a plan so
we went up and had dinner and another friend dog it was a very talented
director and joined us also and he asked me what are you doing now I'm broke at
this time I have a credit card and I probably have like three four hundred
dollars in my savings and that was it because you don't get paid much as an
assistant in Hollywood you know and so um and I had quit that to try to do some
behind the scenes video like MTV's making the video and I got one or two
jobs and then it just stopped but I didn't know that the
recession was born you know and so I had to stop for everyone but people hadn't
been honest about it yet that the something happened overnight right and
so I went to dinner with them and they were asking me like so what are you
doing and I and I would say well I want you and he's like shut up
and I thought what and I said and I'm so confused because I thought hey you're
asking me what I'm doing or what I want to do we're not telling you you're
telling me shut up and we did this a few times back and forth and he said don't
talk again until you're actually doing it because trying is lying and I don't
know if he actually said trying is lying or if I pick that up somewhere else but
but the meaning is the same trying his line so you're doing it or you're lying
to yourself but you're not lying to me right and he and he was really rough
with me so he broke me that night and he rebuilt me that night and he gave me one
of the best lessons I've ever learned in my life I actually practiced it without
really knowing what it was and he gave me this thing I'm gonna tell you right
now and he said no matter what country you're from no matter what faith you
practice or you don't practice gender Nationa doesn't matter what
socio-economic level one of the first things that any human being learns one
of the first words is no because we are told no so many times and he said it's
not the hearing no that's bad it's why we're telling people no no I don't want
people think you're a bad baby I don't people think I'm a bad mother I don't
want you know be a good little girl and be quiet right be a good boy don't show
your emotions be tough and so we are the only living creatures on this planet
that teach our children their instincts and so we're sending people
out there to conform and you have to to a certain extent not to be a freak in
society right but you were sending people out there and we're taking away
their greatest tool that fight or flight you know
and so he said if your instincts tell you to do something go do it I don't
care if you think you're gonna look like a fool if your instincts tell you don't
get in this car right now don't get in that car let everyone think you're crazy
but that is a direct phone call from you to God or Allah or energy or the
universe or whatever you want to think is bigger than you okay a greater power
and he said that's a direct phone call that you're getting at any moment so he
gave me examples he said how many times have you thought about somebody and then
they text you and you're like that's so weird I was thinking about you it's like
that's a connection how many times has a mother been at work and she's like
something is wrong something is wrong with my baby
and they call the babysitting like yeah there was a small accident you know he
or she is fine that mother knows there's a connection right and so he said the
the closest you'll ever be to God or again whatever I don't want people
getting lost on that part of it or whatever higher power
mother nature is when you listen to your instincts and he's like if you want to
photograph everybody and all green paint go do it something is telling you this
was gonna be good for your career now that night so that's what I mean by he
broke me and then he rebuilt me and he was setting it in an infrastructure that
I had already been using and how I I've acted in a lot in my earlier career my
school and everything that's okay and so he had set like the
the structure the infrastructure of like things that I a guideline and I had been
doing it but I didn't know this was my instincts okay and I went home thank God
he paid for dinner because I did not have money to even pay for my portions
and we had like drinks and dessert and appetizers I'm like oh my you know
that's expensive and he set me on my way and for like a week after I had this
weird feeling apparently was my instincts but this weird foreign feeling
that I should buy a camera but I didn't look when I tell you I did not even know
that a camera you can detach a lens from a camera like
a DSLR I guess mirrorless now whatever I did not even know you could do that I
didn't know what an ISO was I knew nothing nothing about a camera and so
but I had this feeling go buy a camera jobs are not coming in rent this coming
up and I only have a few hundred bucks and a credit card left and I sat on it
and I pushed it down and it just kept persisting kept persisting for I want to
say a week week and a half or something like that this feeling was there and it
would not go away and I don't know what made me but I decided to listen to my
instincts and I went into a camera shop and and I I'm such and so naive but I
went in and I said hi um I have $2,000 my credit card and I said I have $2,000
and I want to be a photographer and he sold me like 1998 dollars and whatever
there was nothing else left in the store to buy not even double-a batteries
because it was like it wasn't I mean they maxed out my card and I bought a
calf or TD which was not even a real it was like a prosumer camera and it was a
good camera but I'm just saying it wasn't like it was whatever it was like
a rebel today or something and I had I sat in my car and I remember the most
nauseous feeling and I thought what did I do
I even I know I can't even get a cash advance on my last credit card because
I'm max that sucker out I went home and just I was just I was a mess
and what a dramatic person but I was a mess you know and I thought man I don't
even know how to turn this thing on like no joke I have no idea how to turn this
thing I did not know what a single I didn't know a single thing okay but but
I start shooting things like leaves on a tree and a trail of ants and it was all
horrible pictures I got a call because I wanted to do behind-the-scenes video and
I got a call because of a friend of a friend
friend they're like hi his wallet there my good right and I was like yes what do
you sell exactly and they said hey somebody said you have
a video camera and at the time it was like the mini DV tapes of those they
were like hate you I heard you have a an HD camera and because everyone was using
the Panasonic DV X 100 which was like not fully HD I think whatever but I said
yes and I was so excited because I can buy food now okay and put food in the
fridge and they said uh sure needs somebody to come to the Kodak Theatre
right now and I'm packing everything in a bag throwing everything didn't even
have camera bags like I put them in a gym bag and stuff and I'm about to close
the door and that weird feeling in my gut said uh sure doesn't know why you're
hired it's his manager go get that stupid
camera you just bought to the still camera and I grabbed it and I ran in the
car and I remember I had a little blackberry
curve with the ball and I wrote f-stop means this ISO means this and you know
aperture means this whatever and and that was pretty much our shutter speed
and and and I I went there I went underground like two three levels I said
hi to Usher and I'm one of those people that when I'm nervous I look like I look
like I'm hiding a I'm telling you it's like this it just looks so bad you
know and I don't have a poker face whatsoever and I was just shooting stuff
and I decided to put the video camera on a tripod in the corner so now looks like
a security camera but usher has the footage and I wish I had it but of me
trying to figure this out and looking at my blackberry mic okay this button did
this and I'll take pictures and I didn't even know that I had a one gigabyte card
CF card so my compact flash was one and I was shooting on JPEG
small did not even know about these settings that they existed or that raw
was such a thing okay and I'm shooting and I'm shooting machine gun style
because I'm banking on quantity here not quality and pictures are like because
they had the the neon tubes pictures are coming out like all different colors but
it is not the color you want to see and Usher's coming out blurry because I'm
apparently on like like not even at 40 other thing I was like it was basically
it was I pretty much almost had the bull button you know like it was just
dragging the shutter everything was blurry and I'm ramping up the ISO as
high as possible I'm just hitting any button okay and not sure looks at me and
says what I've stopped are using and yo when I tell you I have mastered how to
die on the inside and keep a calm face I think I'm keeping a calm face I that gut
feeling said walk away yo I was on autopilot
I don't think that was valid that day okay I was on autopilot that gut feeling
said walk away and I remember was instant and said it's better that he
thinks you're crazy artists then someone who has no idea which was the truth okay
and actually now I think both are true but but I went upstairs I looked up
again because I wrote F stop but I had to look up I'm like what did this mean
you know with all these performers street performers and I'm like come on
Verizon you know like give me the reception everything and I went back
down in case he asked me and I wrote it down because I'd be like f-stop is this
I'm like I am using five point six you know but he didn't ask me again and I
just kept shooting I went home I went home and so down and I looked at all the
pictures and I did not even know that Photoshop exists I did not know
Photoshop was a thing the whole Institute of Adobe was not even in my in
my spectrum whatsoever okay so I decided to download all the
pictures open them up in the Julie inside the preview like what you
would open up a PDF in and so you have the option of bringing down contrast
exposure saturation hue and that's about it and I'm looking at these pictures I'm
like I don't know where uh sure is because everything is blurry I can't
tell you know anything and out of that I probably pulled under ten images that
you can identify it was Usher and that he was actually in focus on accident
okay and I pulled up about ten of him and this is me opening a picture one at
a time I'm like no next it was a disaster okay and then I it was like I
did not even know such a thing of lightroom existed so I would take him on
one folder copy him paste them into a second folder as I'm as I'm eliminating
which pictures I want you know and narrowing down and I found about 10 12
maybe nine I don't know but I opened them up in that preview panel and I
thought oh my god they're every color under the rainbow and I remember again
that that instinct was really in play and as like just turn it all black and
white and I turned the ID saturated all of them and I boosted the contrast a
little but they're already blurry sometimes and they were already high
high high ISO so super grainy and I sent them to Benny Medina who was ushered
manager at the time now he does JLo and I think JLo only and they called me
within like 30 minutes and they said well lead I don't know how you guessed
it but we sent the pictures to Usher and his whole new thing for the new album is
old Hollywood oh and he wants these black-and-white grainy imperfect images
and so we want to know would you be willing to work with them and be his
personal photographer oh my god and that like that to me is like that's the
perfect story in my career of following your instincts and just having faith in
it I mean I know that if people are listening to this now like he's crazy
like how am I gonna take that chance but that was
me just following instincts from the start and going there's there's this
weird feeling and I don't know what's going on I'm gonna follow it and every
single day I would learn one new thing on YouTube and I would type things like
what does exposure mean and I would study it because a history major you
know ask me about the Civil War I'll tell you everything about it you know
and that was and I would learn that one thing and then I was not allowed to go
to bed until I learned one new thing every single day so after a week it was
no big deal after a month it was a no big deal by the end of the second month
I started started adding up the things that I knew you know and so I sure would
say hey let's shoot over there I'm like no let's not because I hadn't even
reached that yet I was just on natural window light you
know and I was like no that's not let's just stand over here and do it and I was
just so whatever I learned the night before I would practice it on him the
next day and he's like you have such a fast I like you do so many things I
might do you don't even know like I'm on YouTube every night like learning things
and then coming downstairs and practicing it on you and I learned how
to photograph on tour with Usher did you create B I mean I'm seeing a lot of
parallels where we're just it's like this like serendipity and in your you're
at the right place the right time and you talked about you know your instincts
are very you know acute and did you have to be hyper aware when you were a child
on the lookout for things or because you seem to be so observant yeah I heard an
interview that you didn't you said you could tell the light package maybe
someone was using by the light reflection in the eyes of the subject so
and I see this thing in you where you seem so detail-oriented did you have to
be hyper do you think that's like this thing that you adopted nobody has ever
asked me that before but I don't know if you saw the look on my face has changed
I think in times I had to okay yeah I think there are times I have to be very
aware and and not anything like oh my god let me just correct that real fast
it was not like what the viewers may think in any kind of
abuse it was just I was a we were I was a war child you know and so in
Afghanistan I remember the invasion of the USSR and my brother was born with
you know congenital heart disease or heart failure and so ever like it was
just her moil constant so you couldn't go outside because there were tanks and
every winter the doctor would tell my mom your son my brother may pass he's
not gonna make it he's not gonna make it past five or eight years old or
something so it was chaos and I remember many many times in my childhood just
kind of not getting I mean how do you I mean like you have a child that suppose
he's gonna die and you have the Soviet Union that just invaded your nation so
like paying attention to little Waleed it's not top priority you know what I
mean so there was a lot of moments that I remember just being very observant and
just looking and feeling the temperature of the room and knowing when to talk and
reading people's faces because things would happen outside like somebody would
be dragged off to jail or murdered because of the war and so I do remember
now really looking at people's faces huh just yeah there you go that's a new
memory but yeah interesting and so that may be which was was was not a positive
thing stemmed into now you being able to pick up little nuances and maybe maybe
yeah maybe I mean I'm not versed enough to know like about the study of it but I
think that I've always been very detail-oriented and yeah yeah I've
mastered kind of being a fly on the wall and I guess it just came naturally
because just growing up that way
you