By Ally Jones
Ibrahim El-Osery was on the field for almost every varsity football game last fall, but not because he was playing. El-Osery, a freshman at La Cueva High School, is a photographer with a knack for getting good shots of athletes and musicians in action. El-Osery was able to attend roughly 25 events this year with easy, free access granted by Coach Brandon Back. Although many people know El-Osery for his sports photography—mainly for football—he photographs a wide range of subjects. On his Instagram account (@ib.photog), he’s posted various landscape photos and even a portrait of a rail worker in a moving train. “I don’t exactly have a preference for taking photos of anything. I enjoy taking sports pictures, and I also really enjoy taking pictures of things that are around me,” El-Osery said.
“His passion really shows in his photography,” Lexi Nguyen, a sophomore at La Cueva, said when shown some of his landscape and sports photos.
El-Osery got into photography at a young age, joining his elementary school’s photography club in third grade. He stopped for a couple of years, but during the extensive time at home during the height of the COVID pandemic, he picked it back up. Now in high school, he’s starting to take it more seriously. His dad helps him set up his camera, a Canon SL3.
Outside of photography, Ibrahim plays violin in La Cueva’s orchestra and is a member of the newly formed boys’ volleyball team.
Most of El-Osery’s audience is La Cueva students and athletes, but he’s been able to reach more people by carefully using Instagram’s features. “At the moment, photography is getting me a lot of exposure to people I don’t know. … It might get me an opportunity in the future that I wasn’t even thinking about,” El-Osery said when asked about his plans for photography in the future. “I probably won’t continue photography as a career, but I definitely won’t forget it.”
