Board of Directions

Dune Bashing in the Middle East

 

View from the front seat as we raced Land Cruisers across the sands outside of Dubai.  This can be a pretty rough ride and the tires are half deflated on purpose for more grip (of which at times it feels like there is no grip when you’re up on two of the side wheels waiting for the drop).  I think I saw Obi Wan Kenobi on one of these hills.

Burj Khalifa View

Shot of the Burj Khalifa late construction from the promenade nearby on a quiet Sunday morning in the Fall of 2009.

Rooftop Morning Dubai

Got up very early in Dubai and took these shots of sheikh zayed road looking left and right with the sea at my back.  During the day and from up high you can really get a sense of how the city is being built literally on sand.

Burj Al Arab Hotel Early A.M.

Took a walk around the Burj Al Arab Hotel as the sun came up to get some good light around the beach area before heading back across town for a breakfast.  Was able to pack a lot into the visit.

Late night coffee in Dubai

Again I’m always amazed at how companies find the “matching” (if that’s possible) font in other non-Western alphabet languages.  I took this shot while heading back to my hotel in Dubai.  Starbucks outside of the US is an interesting experience because for the locals it’s not so much for the coffee but more for the visibility of being seen in what they perceive as an “in” place.  I think the best examples of this with Starbucks in particular are in Shanghai and Tokyo.

Dubai Rooftop View

This is one of my favorite shots of of Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai from my hotel rooftop.  Just before heading out for dinner I decided to go to the rooftop to see the view and what a view it was.  Dubai is hands down one of the more interesting cities on Earth and a mix of so many different things it’s sort of hard to describe.  It’s fast, slow, futuristic, ancient – a real unique kind of a city.  It has that Star Wars other planet vibe going on…..

Dubai Desert

Like a scene out of Star Wars.  After we went dune bashing in Land Cruisers we caught the sunset in the middle of the desert near Dubai.  You haven’t seen dark until you find yourself in a Middle Eastern desert when the sun has gone down.  You can see every star in the sky.

Burj Khalifa Pre-Opening

I snapped this shot just about 2 months before the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa was to open.  It was a cool time to be there because all the work was furiously being wrapped up and it was just before the building got its final wash down.  If you have not stood in front of this building it is almost impossible to describe just how tall it is – you almost cannot back up far enough to make it even fit in your lens.  To try to give some perspective, the three buildings on the left are already tall skyscrapers.

Old Dubai

Went to see Mission Impossible last night where a good bit of it was filmed in Dubai.  It made me think of my experiences there, one of which was in old Dubai near the Dubai Creek (more like a river) where it’s lined with merchants ships and dock workers.  I spent some time moving fast in the streets there shooting as many images as I could only to go back discover what I had shot later on.  This was one of those shots – the old man who probably sits on this stool everyday cooking food.  The dichotomy between old Dubai and modern Dubai is beyond night and day.