Beirut-born and award-winning photographer Patrick Baz was only 12-years-old when the Lebanese Civil War shook Lebanon.
From his first experience of conflict, he went on to spend over 30 years of his life experiencing and capturing wars in photography.
His three decades of chasing conflicts across the region began in Lebanon at around 18-year-old, where he worked as a freelance photojournalist.
Without formal education, Baz was a self-taught photographer. However, his pictures were recognized and featured in international publications like Time Magazine, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, and more, until eventually getting picked up by Agence France-Presse (AFP) in 1989.
For AFP, he covered conflicts from the First Intifada to the First Gulf War, as well as the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab Spring protests/uprisings, and more.
But the years of war had taken its heavy toll on Baz, causing him to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Luckily, he has been able to treat it but he has had to reorient his work.
He shifted his focus and entered the world of branding and advertising; from telling the stories of wars to telling the stories of brands.
Today, Baz defines himself as a “former war photographer turning [his] lens towards life, social, politics and corporate.”
He has won the Picture of the Year International (POYi) award twice and has published two books Don’t take my picture: Iraqis don’t cry, and Christians of Lebanon: Rites and Rituals.
