Evening in the Dubai Marina

For today, here is a photo of the Dubai Marina as seen from Palm Jumeirah. This view is just so cool. I have many photos of it, but I don’t mind having more. You can see some blurred ships in there, as they were creating a new island there, and working on it the whole night.

This is from one of my recommended spots in Dubai, and you can see the whole list here.

This is a blend of two exposures, created in Photoshop. I usually push the Dubai Marina photos more into blue/colder colors, but this time I though of just making it warmer. And I think it looks quite alright.

Framed view from the Business bay

I don’t remember why this frame was in the middle of the Business bay. There was some description, but it was already few months ago, so I’m not sure what it was. But it looked nice as something to make a framed view, even though the blue lights around it were quite strong.

So here I used the 12mm Laowa lens, so I can get really close to the frame and get as much of the business bay as I can into the shot (the frame is not small, it was around 2m tall). There was still a little bit of distortion, as even with a zero distortion lens, you just can’t be so close and not getting any. But it was very easy to fix in Lightroom.

This is a three shot blend, edited in Lightroom, blended in Photoshop.

Even more dandelions under the Burj Khalifa

Somehow most photos I did during my last trip to Dubai were of the Burj Khalifa. So here is another one :) I posted one with the dandelions before, but these ones are on a second location, a bit further away from the tower.

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Business bay in Dubai

This is taken from one of my recommended spots in Dubai. I have been here few years before, and wow, it’s crazy how it changed. When I was here fist time, it was mostly a construction site, few skyscrapers around, nothing much. And in just few years, there are skyscrapers all around, the whole area is build up and it just looks great. And since it’s a lake, it also gives for a great view with many reflection.

So of course I had to do a panorama here, to catch all of it. I used three photos here, taken actually without a panoramic head. I found out over time, that if you don’t go very wide (wider than 24mm) and your subject is not that close, you can create panoramas easily without needing any special gear. Just rotate the camera and shoot.

This panorama was combined in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop.

And here are few details:

Star trails over Burj Khalifa

Before you ask how I got the stars over the Burj Khalifa like this, I have to say, this is a composite. The star trail part was not taken above Dubai, but It’s a part of a different photo, taken earlier this year.

When I edited this shot, I liked it, but the sky just looked boring. There was just nothing there. So I thought what I could put there. Clouds were just not enough, I wanted something else. First I tried to make some spiral star trails from scratch. While it did not look bad, it looked too fake for me. So instead I took a photo I captured in Austria in January, and removed some of the stars, to not be so dense. Like this it nicely blended into this photo of Burj Khalifa.

The base here is from one exposure edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. The star trails are from around 200 exsposures. If you want to know how to create star tails, check out this post here.