The Dubai Life

These days I'm starting to make myself think differently about what I am trying to show in a photograph. I have never thought of myself as a deep photography thinker. I am not attracted to photographs with agendas or messages, and certainly not pretentious arty photographs. I think I instantly know if I like a photo or not, and that is usually down to the visual beauty of the picture. Of course, a photograph can be emotional, but as most of you know, I am not really a people photographer. I do like processing those photographs, but I am always much more interested in a particular scene, and if people are in that scene then great, but for me, you don't need a face to feel emotion.

One of the aspects of a photograph I am hearing more and more of though, and it is this aspect I am trying to get into my head when I take a picture, is storytelling. I'd have never agreed a couple of years ago that a photograph can tell a story. Maybe I would have said it can represent a particular time and circumstance, but it can't actually tell a story. What makes me think differently now though, is that telling a story with a photograph is different to telling a story with words. The story in the photograph does not have a narrative, and it is up to the viewer to write it. But what the photograph does give you are the elements to create that story. The story of a time. The story of a place. Not of course with a beginning, middle and end, but of a moment that has just been frozen in time.

However, you look at this picture, I always kept thinking that it tells a story. Again, not necessarily a deep and meaningful one, but of a certain place in time. The story I think it tells is of The Dubai Life, but that's the great thing about photography - a different story is created for every single person that sees a picture.

Dubai Lights II

Back in Dubai today then, and here is my second long exposure shot from the the beach of the Fairmont Palm hotel on the Palm Jumeirah. The reason I want to post a few shots of this scene, is that different exposures and different angles bring out different results. Unlike the last 'Dubai Lights' photo for instance, this exposure kept the lights largely on the sea itself rather than coming all the way to the small waves. This gives a different shape to the lights, and I think I personally prefer this version.

There are perhaps 1 or 2 'Dubai Lights' pictures to come, though they won't all appear at once. There will be something a bit different on Thursday, though I haven't quite decided what yet.

Tip of the day: I dare you to share a negative opinion about the Winter Olympics on Twitter, and watch how you get hounded out for it, from people you don't know (and some you do!).

Only in Dubai

I learnt a valuable lesson from a documentary I watched before I travelled to Dubai recently. It went something like this "In Dubai, it seems that the crazier the idea is, the more likely it is to succeed". This is very true. If you are not sure, just google 'Dubai World Islands' and then you will see the kind of ideas that get the seal of approval in this part of the world.

I am not sure if there are any other twisting skyscrapers like this anywhere else in the world, but I would not be surprised if there wasn't. I so wish I could have been at the meeting where the guy with the idea tried to sell it to the money lenders. I'm sure the baffled faces would have been numerous, and that being at the stage they still thought it was a joke. But there you have it, a skyscraper that can't figure out which way it wants to face.