Photography Spots Dubai

Hey folks,
I will be in Dubai in the first week of January. Can you tell me some good photography spots in Dubai and the surrounding areas?


Thanks winam

I'm going on Friday and coming back on the 3rd of January - PM me nearer the time to remind me and I'll tell you about anything interesting I find. I'm staying in Sharjah, so I'll keep an eye out there too.

I'll be listening. Will be there for four days on the 24th of March

Right - four days in and I'm getting a pretty good feel for it. I can recommend taking a 'big bus' tour around for convenience reasons in the first couple of days; it's a hop-on, hop-off tourist bus with interesting commentary. It takes you to all the common touristy places (various malls, the drop-off points for the generic souqs, the palm island, underneath the Burj Khalifa, Jumeirah beach etc etc). It's just really useful for orientating yourself and the commentary gives you a bit of insight into things you might not otherwise have noticed.
Obviously, the architecture is amazing, especially in New Dubai - if you can be there at dusk when all the skyscrapers are lit up with the desert sunset behind (with a good tripod or extremely steady hands!!) there's some nice photos to be had. Get right underneath the Burj Khalifa (the 800+ metre tall one - it's quite hard to miss) and there's some pretty crazy perspective shots to be had.
The souqs are a bit of a let-down having bean to Marrakech, partly because they're so new and well restored. If you (or your S.O.) like shiny things, the gold souq is a good place to start, although try and time your visit so you don't get caught up n thousands of people who've just been chucked off their cruise liner! There's some nice candids to be had of the shopkeepers - although unless you're being surreptitious about it they're more likely to say yes if you've bought something The fabric souq is also worth visiting; there's some nice street shots, incredibly beautiful silks and a bit more character than some of the newer districts. I think that my favourite spot so far has been the fish market (near the gold souq), as it's full of great characters and cool fish! If you can stomach the stench, it's a great spot.
Otherwise, just keep your eyes open as you walk around (and yes, it is actually cool enough to be able to walk at this time of year - I wouldn't want to try it in the summer!) for anything that catches your eye. I quite like abstract shots, so I've been playing around with walls and ventilation grids and mall roofs and stuff.
Don't forget the flight out; I got some nice images of sunset over a dust storm near Baghdad!
Oh, and don't bother buying Canon equipment here. It's just as expensive or more so than in Europe! Sigma and Tamron seem to be a little cheaper.
I hope this helps and I'll keep you updated as I do more stuff. I'm here for another week and we're planning to go out into the desert amongst other things, which should give some interesting shots.

Thanks Alex,
Will follow your tips.

I can also recommend the Atlantis aquarium. Just bring a veryfast lens - it's dark in there! 50 1.8 or similar

My first selection is now up on my flickr!

Thanks for advices, I´m going to Dubai in january, from finland!

If you can find time to cross the creek in one of the old water taxis, there's some nice river traffic to shoot - old dhows, little water taxis etc. The souks are split across both sides of the creek anyway, so you'll pretty much have to use them!
More pics on flickr now.

Thanks folks, on my way now. Going to post later

Enjoy!

I think it was year 2007 when there was 15 million tourists per year in the city of 1,5 million people! I´m wondering how many tourist there will be nowadays!

Well, on New Year's Eve, they reckon that over 600000 people came to the Burj Khalifa to watch the fireworks. Following the fireworks display, the Dubai metro was completely overwhelmed. Roads were gridlocked, taxis unavailable and the crowds queuing numbered in the tens of thousands. Queues for the metro were over two hours long, and then the police closed the stations. They were pushing everyone in the queue back using batons, crushing people including many small children. Saw at least one guy being dragged off to the party van by a load of police. We GTFO before a full-on riot started and joined the stream of people walking the wrong way down the choked motorway. Finally got home at 4AM.
I guess they haven't quite sorted out their crowd control yet. If they want people to come and watch their firework displays then they'll have to try and convince the police that baton charging people quietly queuing to get on a train isn't great for their image.

HAH! Sounds terrible, I don´t want to be here when there´s so many people rushing around...

You should be fine, you're not going during peak season. In hindsight, I should probably have stayed at home on New Year's eve, but at least I got some cool photos.