Check Out Rami Ammoun’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rami Ammoun.

Hi Rami, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

My journey started in 2015. I received several awards upon my graduation in 2015, including a $1,500 monetary award. I used that award to buy my first DSLR camera and a zoom lens (a Canon T6s and a 55-250 mm zoom lens). I took an online course on photography that summer and used to go out during the golden hour to shoot whatever I felt like capturing. One night, the waxing gibbous Moon was rising, so I captured it framed between two palm trees (image attached). Something about that image gave me a lot of happiness. I zoomed in, saw the craters, and fell in love with taking photos of the Moon from that night on.

Since then, I have invested whatever I could save in buying bigger lenses to capture more details of the Moon, until I got a 5″ refractor telescope, which was the ideal lens to capture these details. Along with the Moon, I also liked shooting the stars, and got into different types of astrophotogoraphy.

After each shooting session, I would post the best image I captured on Instagram, as well as other social media platforms. The accounts had steady growth. Meanwhile, I was working on refining my photography techniques to produce better images and learning video editing, which was the game changer for my social media growth.

From taking photos to producing storytelling videos, my social media platforms combined, grew to reach over two million followers over the past nine years.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
First, this is an expensive hobby. To get good images, you will need expensive gear, which can range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. Not only is the gear expensive, but it can also be heavy.

Second, this hobby requires a lot of time and learning. Setting up the gear, shooting celestial objects, doing long exposures, editing and processing the images, and staying up late at night all come into play. This makes it physically and mentally challenging but, at the same time, very rewarding.

Third, there are logistical and natural struggles. Cloudy nights can hinder your ability to take photos, dew collecting on the gear can block the optical components, and thick, turbulent atmosphere can hinder the seeing and blur the images. Cold winter nights can be rough, and hot summer nights can get you a lot of mosquito bites.

Finally, to be good at this hobby, you have to keep up with learning and manage to troubleshoot intricate technical problems you might encounter. You have to be tech-savvy to figure out easier workflows and save time on repetitive tasks. I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now, and I still learn something new in almost every shooting session.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
If you Google my name, you’ll mostly find my photography content. However, my main career is as a dentist. I specialize in surgical prosthodontics, which involves performing full-mouth implant and prosthetic reconstructions. I basically fix smiles that can change lives. My profession is what helped me fund my photography journey.

At my job, very few of my patients know about my photography. The ones who know are the ones who looked me up on the internet. I prefer to keep it this way; in the end, I think my patients would love to know that a dentist is fixing their teeth, not a photographer, lol.

Photography, however, has had a great positive impact on the quality of my work. I also take photos during a smile transformation, and the quality of these images stands out because of my basic knowledge of photography. So overall, it has been a plus for my career and life in general.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I took a few online courses that helped me learn photography and video editing. These courses were on Udemy.com, and the instructor was Phil Ebiner. The first book I read about astrophotography was an extremely powerful tool that taught me many of the techniques I use today. This book is Astrophotography by Thierry Legault.

Other sources included YouTube videos from astrophotographers like myself and image editing software libraries that have guides on how to process images with these programs. I made a few teaching videos myself on my YouTube channel; however, I haven’t created any new ones for some time. I plan to create more teaching content soon, though.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rami-astro.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rami_astro
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RamiAstroIG
• Twitter: https://x.com/rami_astro
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rami_astro
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rami_astro