Neon lights in the Dubai Marina

I will be away for most of the next week, so there will no updates on the blog. But if I go and take some photos, there will probably be some behind the camera shots on my Twitter account here. But before that, here is a new photo from the Dubai Marina.

While editing this photo, I really liked the neon color on one of the skyscrapers, so I pushed the whole white ballance into more magentas and purple colors. It’s a bit different to the tipical blue tone I tent to use most of the time.

This is a blend of two exposures, create in Photoshop. One thing when I edit night photos, is to try and keep them dark. It looks too fake when you have a night photo, and there is no black, no shadows and nothing dark in it.

And just for fun, I also created a version with reflection. Just to see how it looks like.

Late night Dubai Marina

I posted quite a lot of new photos of landscapes in a row, so it’s time for a cityscape shot. This one is one of the many I still have not edited from my trip to Dubai last year. I took this one late in the night while returning to the rented apartment in one of the skyscrapers nearby.

Btw. what do you prefer to book when you travel? Hotel or something like Airbnb? I tend to go mostly for Airbnb, as in some locations the price difference is huge and having a full apartment is better for longer trips.

This photo is a blend of three exposures, done in Photoshop. This is not a panorama, but it was taken with the Laowa 12mm lens and then cropped to get rid of too much foreground.

And here is also a comparison to the original RAW file. As you can see, mostly here I worked on the brightness to get detail in the background. I also used parts of the brighter/darker exposures to have the moving ship in a better location and to get rid of the ghosts of moving people on the walkway.

Bridge crossing in the Dubai Marina

Let’s go with a Dubai photo for today. To be exact, one from the Dubai Marina. This was taken at one of the multiple bridges that span across the Dubai Marina. You have to use them every time you want to get to the other side and don’t want to go all the way around. I did this photo on the way back to the apartment we have rented there. It was right behind the construction on the right.

This is a three exposure blend done in Photoshop. Mostly I only needed to darken the mosque in the middle, as that was very bright compared to other buildings. This is not a panorama, but a photo taken with a 12mm lens, that I cropped in post-processing. I did so, as there was just too much of the walkway in it, and it took away from the look I wanted here.

Early morning in Downtown Dubai

Let’s stop by Dubai in today’s photo. This one was taken a year ago, very early in the morning, right as the sky started to brighten for the sunrise. It was not the easiest shot to take. Right in the middle of where I was standing, is a camera overlooking the area. It would be ok, if there was not a huge cover on it. It really is in the way. Even with a very tall tripod, I could not get over it. So in the end, I took the shot handheld. I stood as close as I could, and braced myself against the camera cover. Not everything worked perfectly, but after few tries, I got few shots I could use.

This is a two shot blend, done in Photoshop. This series was three shots, but one was blurred as I could not hold it still. Luckily I did not need it.

At the edge of Business bay in Dubai

A bit of a random photo from the Business bay in Dubai. I took many photos there, but also wanted some with the bridges in the area. But it was also already quite late at night and I have been up since 4am that day. And the heat really did not help with not being dead tired. So I got few shots and packed for the day. Still it came out quite nice.

This is a three exposure blend done completely in Photoshop. This is not a panorama, I cropped the photo to this aspect ration. I used the 12mm Laowa lens here, and while it captured a lot in the shot, it also meant I got a lot of the water, more then I wanted. So I cropped it out of the photo. Cityscapes usually look better as panoramic shots anyway. I also used the Nisi Natural Night filter in this photo. I don’t use it all the time, but I quite like the results I got in my Dubai photos. It really depends on the lights that are in the scene, if it’s worth it or not.