المهندس عادل عويني .. الصورة مرجع أساسي لكل مهندس .. مجلة فن التصوير اللبنانية _ ع٤٢

Engineer Adel Awaini The photo is an essential reference for every engineer

Head of the Department of Interior Architecture at the Institute of Fine Arts, Branch 1, Eng. Adel Awaini stresses the close links between photography and the work of the engineer, presenting a preliminary review of this interdependence, which integrates art with science and informatics to reach the cultural benefit from the age of the image.

Adel Owaini has paid great attention to photography since he was a student and is still paving a special and distinguished path at the photographic level, despite his tendency towards interior engineering as a specialty and shroud. We leave the engineer-photographer the opportunity to talk about his beginnings. He says:
- It can be said that my beginning was very ordinary, as is the case with the beginnings of the rest of the amateurs and professionals, but what is distinguished here is my interest in pictures of small insects and the adoption of sudden snapshots, which I constantly search for and expect to happen. During my university studies, my vision developed according to my specialization as an engineer, where I began to test shapes and lines through The lens is for the implementation of engineering topics and ideas, and the truth is that photography contributed greatly to the development of my plastic vision, and in a next step I equipped my home laboratory after I felt the importance of laboratory work as an art in itself.

◻ What is the goal of Eng. Awaini with his attachment and interest in photography?
A person's memory is weak and may often betray him, as he is unable to store information and details for a long time. Hence the importance of the image in our present world. As for me, I relied on photography in all stages of my work, and outside my work also in my visits and tourist trips abroad, and so you see the camera attached to me and I give it my full confidence. used, planned or organized, and these matters cannot be translated and recorded except through the image.
◻ Can you give us an example about that?
- I mention here that I visited Spain and recorded with the camera the Andalusian artistic, decorative and engineering impressions, and after a period of time I was asked to prepare a project of an oriental character, so I returned to these films of mine and was inspired by many ideas and worked on implementing them taking advantage of the accuracy of the details I had, and this is how we see the importance of photography in this field scientific, in addition to the technical importance.

◻ Can we explain more the importance of engineering photography?
At the outset, I would like to stress the importance of photography in all commercial, cultural and scientific fields, from aerial photography to medical, documentary, advertising and industrial photography. As a preparation for preparing maps and to form an initial idea of ​​the building area, in terms of the general location. And therefore to study the surroundings to coordinate between it and the building. Here, allow me to give an example about a public park within a city crowded with buildings and reinforced concrete. - Haraj Beirut - here the element of photography was the best way to show the urgent need to create a green point in a very compact building in the vicinity of Haraj Beirut, and therefore the camera played a major role in determining the height of the tower located in the middle of the garden and taking into account the mountains surrounding Beirut and made the pictures that I took To determine the dimensions and relative heights on the basis that the tower is the highest point of departure for sight and vision, and thus the following stages were adopted:

1- Studying the project.
In the engineering study phase, it is usually used to prepare volumes to form them together. Photography helps here in bringing the realism of the shapes closer, and then in choosing the appropriate formation.
2- Photographing models and models.
Stereoscopic photography helps to show the project and select specific details that highlight the most important elements that the engineer wants to focus on, as this helps the viewer to understand the engineering idea in a visual way.
3- Engineering documentary photography, which is of two types
A- Documentary photography for the archives and helps to preserve the heritage or the residential environment. An example of this is the construction of the marine highway in the Ain Al-Mreisseh area. Photography helped at that time to restore the traditional engineering style of the old buildings, as they were photographed before they were demolished.
B - Photographing laboratory projects, which helps engineers to keep their implemented projects as a personal document and enables them to view
Engineering styles of different countries.
4- Educational documentary photography.
With him, students from different and international engineering schools get acquainted with the work of senior engineers. Through a slideshow or pictures of the high engineering output.

E- Tourist documentary photography.
The engineer photographed the engineering features of the distinctive antiquities and projects in the country, so these pictures play a tourist, cultural and civilized role.
6 - Technical application in the art of engineering photography.
This type of photography requires the first endorsement free of any impurities resulting from the perspective, hence the need to obtain equipment equipped with controls to avoid distortion of dimensions, so the engineer must maintain the integrity of the vertical lines and “horizontal, horizontal lines.”
This is done through the single view camera (View Camera), as it gives more possibilities of control and adjustment, or requires the engineer to have a special lens to correct the dimensions.

◻ Do your students apply the concept of engineering photography, and why don't they do a photographic survey of the most important engineering or heritage constructions in order to preserve and study them?
Photography is usually a basic subject in the curricula of architecture students. Indeed, students of this subject in the third year take photography, but its application began two years ago, and their turnout for this subject in terms of attendance and follow-up, and the results surprised us.
Hence, we have included photography in the interior engineering program starting from next year, and we see that our students are able to absorb the optical perspective to serve their professional position as engineers. As for why they do not do a photographic survey, we have many ideas and projects. In fact, the situation in which we live and its daily developments prevent the implementation of these ideas.

◻ Do you direct your students, on an individual level, towards engineering photography, in Lebanon or abroad, when they travel on scientific missions?
In the past, the guidance was discretionary, before the establishment of the photography studio, but now the guidance will be in a broad form, especially since they have a wide knowledge in the field of photography. From here, we will ask students who are leaving on scholarships abroad. Presenting their perceptions, visions, and what they gained through photographs, and this primarily develops the good record of the engineer or the artist, and therefore these photos become a documentary reference for other students. Therefore, we asked primarily that each student bring his own camera, so that they work on photographing centers, engineering constructions, and artworks in general. The engineer must feel and understand the building that is about to be photographed, and he must focus first, and then emphasize certain special things, such as small details, their shapes and standards.
Saleh Al-Rifai