About

Who is Mahmood?

It’s very hard to summarize your life isn’t it? What can you really say about yourself other than born on whatever date and in wherever country or town? What schools, college or university you went to? So what? Just about everybody on the planet does the same – give or take.

I guess you’re here because you want to know a little bit about me, that’s fair enough. You want to know who is behind this site, or just feeling voyeuristic.

I am a person.

Enough? No?

Ok, I’m also male.

More?

Mahmood Nasser Al-YousifMy achievements so far include being a husband of more than 20 years, father of two girls and a boy. Have two one stupid dogs, a vicious rescued parrot and several exotic plants. I’m my own boss. I own and operate a company that attempts to make life easier for creative professionals to tell their stories better and faster, so they can produce more. I started making movies professionally since 2007 because I have a lot of stories to tell and have a talent for getting people to tell their stories better through my lens. At this moment I’m enjoying moderate success, but put in another place I could do a lot more. I’m certainly not as financially stable as I want to be.

I have always excelled in my studies and enjoyed maths and science most.

I’ve had many hobbies through my life and still participate in most I started a long time ago, the format might have changed, but the enjoyment is still there. I have always been fascinated by the visual arts having a father who was one of the founders of the contemporary art movement in this area of the world is bound to rub off on you.

At school I started the first ever photography club. I have entered just one photography exhibition in Bahrain, and won 2nd prize.

I am also fascinated by computers and their potential. Especially communication and how that marriage can bring disparate peoples together. I started one of the first BBS (bulletin board service) in the Gulf in ‘86. Called it Stray Cats BBS and proceeded to commandeer my wife’s monthly salary to pay the telephone company for the privilege! I put a stop to that in ‘91 I think much to my wife’s happiness and unbound – albeit temporary – relief!

I became an aircraft avionics maintenance engineer, did that for 10 years, realized that I wasn’t going anywhere fast so I went to the States and came back 3 months later with a commercial pilot’s license. The 2nd Gulf War started soon after my return, so employment opportunities for pilots disappeared.

In yet another change of career, I started my company in 1991 and left the airline industry behind.

Now I try to dispel the image that Muslims and Arabs suffer from – mostly by our own doing I have to say – in the rest of the world. I am no missionary and don’t want to be. I run several internet websites that are geared to do just that, create a better understanding that we’re not all nuts hell-bent on world destruction.

I hope that I will be judged that I made a small difference.

last updated 14 July ’10