Pic(k) of the week 10: Cloudy sunset at Jumeirah Beach, Dubai
The Burj al Arab, the so called only "7 star hotel" in Dubai, remains one of the most photographed buildings in Dubai. Design work of the to the letter translated, "Tower the of the Arabs", was started in 1994 by a team of British Architects led by Thomas Willis. Five years later, this amazing building became the icon of Dubai!
Cloudy skies are rare in Dubai and whenever they do appear, it makes for great photo-opportunities. Such was the case the day after a large sandstorm (Shamal) hit Dubai last week.
Of to the Jumeirah Beach with tripod and camera bag, I managed to create the following keeper image of the sun rays illuminating the Atlantis hotel on the top the Palm Jumeriah just before sunset.
Although I carried neutral density filters to make a long exposure, I elected to go with a normal exposure where the waves remain visible. Another rarity in Dubai...
Image details:
Fujifilm X-T1 with the XF 10-24 f5.6
5 jpeg exposures with varying shutter speeds between 1/1000s and 1/25s
Exposure blending in Photoshop CC 2014
Nik ColorEfex for contrast adjustment
With multiple exposures, I more commonly blend them together through a 32bit conversion in Photoshop HDR Pro. This time however, I elected to use a more neutral manual image blending technique in Photoshop.
One might ask, why I shot in jpeg format rather than RAW? The day before I had done some jpeg testing and did forget to reset the camera to RAW shooting. Only towards the end of the shoot, I realised my mistake... Yes, one I'm not proud of, but I guess it proofs it happens to all of us! Anyway, still relatively happy with the final result.
An excellent pdf presentation of the construction of the Burj al Arab can be downloaded here, while more of my own images of this iconic building can be found here.
Remember, "We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us" - Winston Churchill.
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