In this eye-opening episode of The Ajyal Show, cinematographer Baris Konbal reframes his craft as something profoundly human, less about cameras, lenses, and lighting, and more about translating intention into emotion. Baris speaks candidly about a path that did not begin with a traditional love of film. He only started going to the cinema at around seventeen, and his interest grew gradually through a wider curiosity for news, stories, and the machinery of images. It was during his studies, shooting student films, that he discovered he was drawn less to directing and more to creating the images that carry a story forward.

For Baris, technology only becomes meaningful when it serves feeling. Emotion, he explains, does not depend on whether you shoot on film, digital, or even a phone. It depends on choices. Mood begins in the script, and the director's intention, and the cinematographer's role is to imagine the visual world that supports it, including the quiet truth that a sad scene can still live in bright, colourful surroundings. Even great lighting and lenses cannot rescue a scene if the acting, casting, art direction, or colour harmony fall out of step.

He returns often to empathy and listening, the ability to read intention and feel people, which helps him bring performance and story into the frame. Filmmaking, in his view, is a symphony of departments leaning on one another, and the best images often come from trusted relationships. When delays arise, he stays calm and adjusts the take, simplifying setups or shifting angles to protect time and budget. He also reflects on Doha's marked shift before and after the World Cup, and what is now possible to produce locally.

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