Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates, is a city that is known for its luxurious lifestyle, modern architecture, and stunning landscapes. It is a popular destination for tourists and photographers alike, with a plethora of photography locations that offer breathtaking views of the city's skyline, desert landscapes, and cultural landmarks. From the iconic Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, to the traditional souks and mosques, Dubai has something for every photographer. The city's vibrant nightlife, bustling streets, and stunning beaches also provide ample opportunities for capturing the essence of this dynamic city.
Well, I finally made it to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa (a.k.a Burj Dubai), thanks to my wife for queueing over 1 hour last week to get the tickets for today!
It's not a cheap ride (around 20 euros), but it is damn fast (60 seconds for 124 floors!). You barely feel a thing, except a slight discomfort in the ears like in a plane.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
The Dubai marina at Blue Hour with the well known Infinity Tower in the centre. Stitched from 3 vertical images.
Early morning view from the 124th floor platform of Burj Khalifa. It can get pretty crowded there, so not easy to find your spot. Also, the glass was fogged from outside and the empty space between the glass and railings is very limited, so not easy to position a camera. Anyway, got this as a memory from this insanely tall building.
A long exposure shot of the Burj Al Arab at the blue hour was still missing on my stream, so here it is! I had to 'sneak' into the private beach of another famous hotel nearby to take this shot ;-)
Digital blending, 5 exposures, light painting with layer masks and paintbrush. All exposures pre-processed with ACR.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Most Interesting shots**
'L' for the best view in LARGE
Another clear and relatively cool (25 C) evening in Dubai, it is such a treat to go out shooting these days! I already had two shots from that vantage point, but never had a blue hour one.
A little break in my latest B&W series, this one really deserved to be shown in glorious colors! :)
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
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A thick layer of fog covering Dubai on the morning of Feb 22nd. Shot from the 77th floor of a residential building (Index Tower).
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A shot from my archives, which I somehow forgot to post. Here is the Palace Hotel in the so-called 'Old Town Dubai', and as a bonus, the world's tallest tower in the background. Thanks to my flickr buddy arfromqatar who was staying in this hotel and who made that shot possible (as usual we had some issues with the security guard).
This is a digitally blended Vertorama.
This shot is dedicated to A Parisian Woman in KL for her great testimonial. Thanks again V! :-)
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set**
Shot from the 77th floor of the Index Tower in Dubai.
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The iconic twin Jumeirah Towers on the foreground, and of course Burj Khalifa on the background.
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An old spot revisited with my D800 & Nikkor 14-24mm :)
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A few weeks ago I posted a same view (Infinity Vertigo), but shot with the Fuji X-E2 and Fujinon 14mm. This one was shot with the D800 & Nikkor 16mm Fisheye.
This was shot from the 73th floor rooftop of the Cayan Tower (formerly known as Infinity Tower) in Dubai Marina.
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Hello Dear Friends, yes I am still alive! I don't shoot much these days, hence my rare presence on flickr. But this shot is fresh from the oven taken today near where I live.
It's still always a pleasure to 'pop in' and visit your streams! I still have a few shots in my archives, I'll try to post them soon. Have a great week end!
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
I had the chance to get access to the 101th floor of a building under construction in Dubai Marina. Amazing 360 views from there. I will start with a non blue hour shot for a change :)
You can clearly see the fully illuminated Palm Jumeirah Island on the background. The tower on the left is the Princess Tower (95 floors), from which I took the fog shots. The cool shaped tower on the right is Ocean Heights (83 floors), from which I also have a series of shots. And the tower in the middle is the Elite Residence (91 floors).
The world's tallest residential building ("Pentominium") is currently under construction in Dubai Marina and will have 122 floors.
Nikon D800 + Nikkor 14-24mm Vertorama / Digital Blending
Same world, different eras...When tradition meets modern...On the foreground a Mosque, and on the far end the high tech Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah Beach Hotel.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Most Interesting shotsExplore Front Pages**.
I got lucky for this photograph. First, there were low clouds flying around Dubai skyscrapers, which is far from a common thing in Dubai. And then a ship entered into my long exposure and lit the bridge from below. Really enjoyed this place!
Burj Khalifa
A third photo of the Dubai Marina shot at 6:43 pm, from Palm Jumeirah.
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Explored #85. Thanks!
Taken during a photo walk with my buddy Rajesh who had a short stop over in Dubai on his way back to Singapore.
Processed from a single RAW, no HDR, no Digital Blending. A rarity in my photostream!
** Dubai Set | Most Interesting shots | Explore Front Pages**.
The last time I posted a Burj Al Arab shot was almost 2 years ago! I found a great view point today, from the jetty of the Al Qasr Hotel. The blue hues on the foreground are due to the strong blue lighting under the jetty.
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My dear Friends, after a rather long flickr break, I am back! I still don't have enough 'flickr worthy' material to post regularly, but I've started going out again to shoot, despite the heat here in Dubai.
Note: I was planning to come back with shots of the inauguration of the Burj Dubai on 9-9-9, but unfortunately the tallest tower in the world is still not completed. Hopefully it will be by the end of this year!
I'll be slowly catching up on your streams, so please bear with me!
Wish you all a great week end!
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
The fog season should soon come (my first Dubai fog shot ever was shot on October 10th 2012), in the meantime allow me to post an old shot from February this year (never posted yet). Nikon D800 & Nikkor 14-24mm & LucrOit Filter System (ND 9 stops). ISO 100 f/22 40s.
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There is a little story behind this shot. As usual, a buddy and I were trying to make our way (illegally) to the roof top of a building. Usual strategy, enter the building, go to the elevator, (I use the 'phone call' trick, i.e. walking with my phone, pretending to be on a call with the friend I am visiting upstairs).
Well, we managed to get to 48th floor on the roof top (which also had an accessible helipad). Unfortunately the view was not great, all the downward view obstructed by a huge ledge. But we still decided to setup the tripods and start shooting.
After 10 minutes, we heard some noise, and saw light coming off the staircase, a security guard was coming up! Little adrenaline rush, we tried to run and avoid the guy, but he managed to catch us... Well, I offered him a financial compensation for the trouble, which he accepted.
But then, he started telling us that there was a place on the 21st floor near the machines room with a great view, so we went there, and indeed the view was awesome, never shot before as far as I know. So here it is! It was definitely worth to pay a bribe!
D800 + Nikkor 14-24mm Vertical Panorama, Digital Blending.
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For a change, I decided to freeze the cars instead of having the usual light trails :)
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Dubai Creek Harbour is one of the best spots to watch the magnificent Dubai Skyline.
Photo Tips: There's a plenty of space along the waterfront for you and your tripod. In case you want to include some of the foreground objects, which is definitely a nice option too, you'll have to cope with a lot of people, particularly in the afternoon.
It's a location worth to visit both for sunrise and sunset. You'll need a moderate telephoto, particularly if you want to stitch several photos to a panorama.
Getting there: Drive to the Dubai Creek Harbour, there's plenty of underground parking and walk just about 300m then.
Shot with the Fuji X-E1 & Fujinon 14mm.
An awesome compact camera with DSLR image quality!
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Early morning fog shot from the 76th floor of Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
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Continuing my 'Dark Hour' exploration of the Burj Khalifa. I guess this shot would be great at the blue hour, but at that time this area will be very crowded (and I don't feel like cloning out all the people!).
Digital Blending, Vertorama. a total of 7 exposures used. The Vertorama part was very tideous, for the first time I had to use the 'Warp' function of the Transform tools to deal with the optical distortion.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Vertoramas Set | Burj Khalifa Set**
Panorama shot with the Nikkor 24mm PC-E Tilt Shift, hence avoiding the usual UWA lens distortion found in the many photos shot from that vantage point.
Full resolution: 84 Mpix.
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STOLEN PHOTOS - FINAL UPDATE: I just received a mail from Yahoo saying that my request is not processed because they claim I did not put a valid phone number (which is totally nonsense, I did put my number in Dubai - are they expecting a US number???). So the thief removed the photos not because of Yahoo but only because of you, my dear "Internet Mob Friends"! ;-)
LARGE View (Contacts only - sorry). I sincerely apologize to the flickr members who regularly visit my stream but are not in my contacts list. I will gradually add them to my contacts list.
Was in a panoramic mood today, so here it is! This panorama is composed of 6 exposures, each pano exposure is a digital blending of 5 exposures (shot in portrait mode with my Tokina 11-16mm). Total number of exposures processed: 30, each of the RAW shots processed with Adobe Camera Raw for the White Balance and also the Vibrance setting. About 2 hours of total processing. Original size of the panorama: 38 Megapixels.
Ideally, I would have shot the boats and the flag at high ISO and high shutter speed (to freeze the movement), but I felt I was a bit pushing too much! ;-)
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Most Interesting shotsExplore Front Pages**.
The Dubai Terminal 3 Airport and the Dubai Metro.
D800 & Nikkor 14-24mm 9 exposures Digital Blending (out of 77 I took during 30 minutes) 4 exposures for the whole landscape f/8 ISO 100 2 exposures for the light trails f/22 ISO 100 2 exposures for the trains f/2.8 ISO 2000 1 exposure for the arriving plane f/2.8 ISO 2000
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
Long exposure using the Lucroit Filer holder for my Nikkor 14-24mm, and a ND400 HiTech filter. Surely gives a very smooth texture to the fog.
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Leaving temporarily my modeling shots, back to some Dubai cityscapes :)
Here is another view of Dubai's skyline, this time from a huge residential complex called Jumeirah Islands. It consists of 50 small islands, each comprising 16 villas. They all sit in a huge artificial lake.
Digital Blending + Panorama, original size: 17 Mpix
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set | Panorama Set | Architecture Set**
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One of the main interchange of Dubai on Sheikh Zayed Road
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5 exposures Digital Blending with Lumia 1020.
Lumia 1020 allows up to 5 bracketed exposures from -3ev to +3ev, -2ev to +2ev or -1ev to +1ev.
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Dubai engulfed with fog during sunrise. Long exposure with ND1000 filter.
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Taken during a photo outing last evening with my flickr buddy Abdul Rahman from Qatar (arfromqatar).
This is a kind of 'rescued' shot, since we were caught by a security guard after I only shot 2 exposures of my usual 5. I had to manage with those only 2 exposures, hence I produced a more darker shot than my usual ones, but I am still happy with the result.
** Dubai Set | Digital Blending Set | Night Photography Set**
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Something different for a change. Went to one of the Dubai's souk for some street shots. This is not my comfort zone but I am quite happy with this one!
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Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Dubai!
Most notably Daniel Cheong, Jiri Hajek, Adelheid Smitt, George Kurzik, Joao Eduardo Figueiredo, Kari Siren, Frank Voigtländer and Rob Oo.