Illuminating Skyline with more than just a camera flash, Muj Mubarak (‘26) shines a light on the emotion, passion, and skill that goes into playing sports.

Since starting his photography career as a freshman, Mubarak has been expanding his talent and working towards bigger opportunities. 

“[I] started [using a camera] as a project for science, and then started taking it to games and messing with it.” says Mubarak. Then, the “summer before sophomore year, I started getting asked to go to a lot of games for pictures and that’s when it really started picking up.”

This year, Mubarak has been taking photos for many Skyline sports, working through rain, snow, or shine, showing up through it all.

In order to capture the magic of athletics and the heart that goes into playing them, Mubarak uses a range of devices  “I use a Sony A73 or sony A74 [as my camera] and I use a 70-180mm zoom lens for outdoor sports and a 24-70mm or 35-150mm for indoor.”

Being a Skyline student has made it easier for him to have successful business working with the different teams. However, he’s been thinking about what else could be possible with his camera and has been migrating his work outside of Skyline.  “A large chunk of this year was mainly [working with] Skyline and then other teams when we played them,” says Mubarak. “Now, I’m working with other teams and schools [as well as] with a private team [Motor City Grizzlies]…I fly with them.”

Social media has been a very important part of marketing for his business, one of the main ways he receives interest from others for his sports photography. “I saw his Instagram account and thought his photos were pretty good,” says Varsity Lacrosse player, Nico DeYoung (‘26). “He also is local and offered [the Skyline lacrosse team] a discount so I thought may as well ask him.”

Mubarak agrees that social media has a big role in his business. It has been useful to be “posting a lot, networking with different people, having them tag you or adding a watermark to show who you are, are a lot of big things,” says Mubarak.

This year, Mubarak has seen a big growth in his photography game. He’s improved his skill and grown his business.  He’s worked hard and plans to continue sports photography for the duration of his time in high school, and possibly expand further to the college level when he graduates.

Knowing what it’s like to be a beginner, Mubarak has advice for any young entrepreneurs thinking about going into photography. “Try to get as much feedback as possible, and really learn what you’re doing. For me, I can show a drastic change from last year to this year just [based] off of me learning and watching videos on what I’m doing. I think that’s the biggest thing you can do.”