Here’s the view from my room of the cool gardens and pools there at the Four Seasons in Dubai. I think it looks kind of sexual in a way… don’t you? It reminds me of fallopian tubes… not that I spend a lot of time looking at fallopian tubes or anything…
The beach is actually tolerable at night as opposed to the daytime. I tried to go on a jog here in the daytime and I made it about 10 minutes before I almost overheated with exhaustion. Some of the Muslim women are out on the beach in the daytime wearing a full black burka. I have no idea how they can stand it. Also, why would you even go to the beach if you had to wear a burka?
Before I started doing stuff exclusively with the Ritz-Carlton, I visited a few different Four Seasons around the world. Their one in Dubai had this really cool rooftop area where you can go relax at night. You don’t want to relax there in the daytime or else you’ll end up looking like a roasted pig.
I walked through some open gates and started exploring this area of Dubai. It turned out that I was not supposed to be there, and the security came to get me and call the police. It got really messy. You don’t want to be in prison in Dubai… Believe me. I tried to explain that I didn’t break in and that the gates were wide open for pedestrians. I eventually showed the police the gate and said that I was just an innocent photographer. Not being photographers, the police did not understand why a dude would just wander around and take photos. I eventually convinced them, and they let me out of custody… it wasn’t easy because I have a healthy amount of disdain for authority figures whose authority is based on a fictional construct.
It’s about time… all of these are winners! 🙂 Here’s the new trailer:
Here’s a new edit from Dubai that I recently threw together for that proposal in Hollywood. I’ve been focusing a bit more on cross-processing along with an emphasis on the 2:1 framing ratio.
Well, I broke down and bought a new Mavic Pro Quadcopter! I love my Phantom 4 Pro, but I also wanted not just a backup, but a device that I could quickly get up in the air. My current thoughts are the Mavic Pro will perform perfectly for most daytime flights. We’ll see! I’m headed to Florida and the Caribbean soon, and I’m excited to try it!
I’ve spent a bit of time in different bazaars all over the middle east and I’ve loved every one of them. I really feel like I should be buying a lot of stuff, but I’m usually so overwhelmed that I don’t know what to buy. I did get about 10 Moroccan lamps to be sent back to New Zealand. So that was fun. Actually, I think I’m usually in “Photo Mode” and therefore not so in the “Shopping Mode.”
There is a nearby beach hotel that you can stay at for much cheaper and it’s part of this same network of hotels. If you book there, then you can eat at the restaurants here in this “7-star hotel” or visit the upstairs bar that juts out over the sea. This is what Rene and I did and it worked out great. They also let us use tripods in here for a while with no issues…
That hotel is the Royal Jumeirah Beach Hotel. Check it out! Note I paid full price for the hotel… not a product placement just a good recommendation! 🙂
What a building! Some people find it not-so-attractive, but I think it’s kinda fun in a glitzy-vegas jewellery-box kinda way. Hey, I like colorful stuff, what can I say? There’s a very interesting documentary on this you can find on YouTube and it shows how the whole thing was initially painted white. The royal family came in, hated it, and demanded more colors. It ended up like this!
Come out for our photo walks! See more on the European Tour Website! Hope to see you in person soon! 🙂
I was staying at the Four Seasons here along the beach in Dubai and went out for a late night walk. There is ALWAYS construction going on, so I decided not to avoid it and try to make an interesting photo with all the lights. Most of the time, I want a clean beach shot without any of this unsightly construction going on, but I decided to give myself a challenge and see if I could make it more interesting!
Don’t forget to sign up for our Lisbon Workshop – it’s gonna be amazing!
I’ll be stopping here on the way to that Lisbon workshop! To find out about other ones, go to our Workshops Page and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to find out! 🙂
How beautiful is Dubai? I love coming here to take photos and explore the city. For this shot, I was invited through the royal family and a friend to get up onto a building that was about half a mile in the air. This allowed me to be able to shoot straight across at the Burj Khalifa. Most photos you see have it leaning inwards because it’s so tall and shot with a wide angle upwards… those are cool, but so is this angle!
Whenever I look something up in Wikipedia, I tend to go down a little rabbit hole. But I found the Burj Al Arab entry to be pretty interesting! I’m just into buildings and architecture, even though I really don’t know much about it at all…
Yesterday’s Sydney Opera House photo and today’s photo of the Burj Al Arab in Dubai have a lot in common. They are both inspired by things-nautical. The opera house is based on waves and this is based on a huge sail. There’s something else about this building that causes a lot of confusion with the scale of it. It’s absolutely massive and I believe it’s one of the tallest hotels in the world.
