Category Archives: dubai

Like visiting the future

100315dubai_sotc

I’m in Bangkok, Thailand, tonight with my first solid internet connection so I thought I’d share a shot from Dubai taken this morning. It’s the Burj Khalifa (formerly the Burj Dubai) — the tallest building in the world. Note to my mother: the observation deck is still closed so, no, I didn’t get to go up.

There will be more Dubai shots later, including the spice and gold markets in the older part of town but how can I mention Dubai and not show this building. The growth in Dubai has been explosive but what makes it special to me is the attention to design. They aren’t just throwing up tower blocks as fast as they can, they are creating one of the most unique skylines in the world, using some the most creative architecture I’ve ever seen. This is the future world that we were promised in sci-fi movies. I almost expected to see people zipping around in their personal jetpacks.

Anyway, more later. I have a 4:30 wake-up call for tomorrow morning to catch my 5th flight of 12 on this trip. I’ll be in Chiang Mai for the next few days and will post as possible. More images will follow once I’m home and can do some proper processing.

Another foggy morning

fog

Getting back into my walking schedule, I headed out into fog once again this morning. Other than a good thunderstorm, I think fog is my favorite weather. Scenes are simplified, colors muted, and it’s so quiet. A lot safer to be out shooting in than a thunderstorm, too.

Here’s one more from this morning that I tried a little texture experiment on:

tree

Good night, Shanghai

Shanghai Pearl Tower

I had dinner atop the Oriental Pearl Tower on my last night in China and hoped to finally get that dusk shot I’d been waiting for. Not only was it threatening rain, but I had learned the night before when trying to shoot the skyline that most of the buildings were not lit until about an hour and a half after sunset. So, no twilight skies with lit skyscrapers on this trip. After dinner, it was pouring rain. Buckets. But, as I made my dash out of the building with my gear bundled tightly under my raincoat, I looked up and saw the tower lit for the first time. I found a small overhang from a ticket window that provided enough shelter that I could get this shot. One of the last 5 of my trip — and the rest of those were primarily shots I took of my amazing hotel room to show friends.

Not the shot that I had envisioned, but I like it. If the lights couldn’t be on while there was some sky color, I’m actually glad to have had the cloud cover so that the spotlights had something to illuminate. I’ll just have to come back when that newest tallest-building-in-China is complete and get my skyline shot from across the river then.

I’ve been lazy the last two days and haven’t updated my Alamy files at all so I keyworded 36 images this morning to cover today’s goal as well as that of the past two. Now I’m all caught up — for the time being. Only 874 more images to prep to meet my May 1 goal of 2000 images.