The Dubai Skyline from The Palm
A black and white version of a modern skyline. Works well
A black and white version of a modern skyline. Works well
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Apr, 2016Views
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Awards
Zenith Award
Top Shot Award 22
Creative Winter Award
Curator's Selection
Legendary Award
Lucky 3 Award
Member Selection Award
Spring Selection Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
Superior Skill
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this shot right from the end of the Palm in Dubai at the end of a photography workshop.Time
Blue hour... definitely my favorite time of the day! I love the balance between natural and artificial lights at this time of the day. I took this shot in the evening. I remember waiting for the opportunity to shoot a cityscape in Dubai; and I got nervous as we got stuck in traffic on that day. Luckily, we made it on time!Lighting
Colors were really well balanced that day. Both the sky, the water and the reflection on the glass facades were in the same tones. I used bracketing to be able to convey this feeling in the final image: the lights on the beach front were way too bright for a single exposure. I finalised the color version first and wanted to give BW a try: the glass facades are made of glass but aluminium as well; so why not playing with gray as aluminium. I ended up with 2 versions that I really love for different reasons: one for color balance; one for contrast and metallic look it gives to the picture.Equipment
This was shot on a Nikon D700 with the Nikkor 24-70 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm f/16. 200 ISO, 25 s exposure on a tripod.Inspiration
I was looking for an opportunity of shooting Dubai skyline while attending a workshop of Bryan Peterson. I had just gone through Elia Locardi's cityscape tutorial at that time and eager to take the opportunity of being in Dubai for 2 days to shoot some. We were initially thinking of having the sea and rocks as a foreground... unfortunately, a brand new footpath was under construction between the road and the sea and access was restricted. We were short in time; got stuck in traffic. I decided to keep it simple and frame tight to avoid the "nice" railing and be able to focus on exposure, geometry and camera alignment.Editing
The first step was to blend 2 exposures to manage the dynamic range: one for the artificial lights; one for the ambient. Pretty easy actually in any image processing software allowing you to create selections from channels and use the trendy "luminosity masks" concept. I then moved to the BW conversion using Nik Silver Efex; I love the way this software is designed: color filters, contrast, texture. Very similar to concepts used during film days at least for me. And it has a lot of presets; a great way to get your way towards the final image: I try most of them and generally find one being attractive that I use as my starting point. Maybe I am a bit lazy to start from scratch ;)In my camera bag
Selecting what to put in my bag... always a challenge. Not that I own so much but my back prefers to travel light... Bad luck for him, the Nikkor 24-70 mm f/2.8 remains my favorite lens. Yes the focal range is a bit short on the telephoto side; yes it's big and heavy. But I am in love with its rendition. Something unique. Not soft; silky! Then comes my Nikkor 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5. A gift for my back as it is super light; it's also affordable and super sharp at any focal length. A crime not to have this lens in your bag if you're a Nikon shooter!! The 3rd one is the Nikkor 70-300 mm f/4-5.6; a really good bargain when travelling. Body wise, I carried my D700 for long and enjoyed it. I recently switched to a D810 and it will be my buddy ;) from now on. Rest depends on where I am heading to, especially primes!Feedback
One thing I experienced fully shooting this picture and another one the next morning is preparation! I shot this one discovering the location, having almost no time for trials and scouting. The one I shot the next morning was the exact opposite: I took one morning to try few things and another morning to shoot the one I wanted. 2 totally different conditions and it's really key to me to keep it simple when not being prepared. I was able to focus on key things for cityscape going for a simplistic composition: leveling of the camera for straight lines; focus; exposure to manage the highlights and water. All these sound easy and it is. But it requires a bit of time and blue hour is short!! In other words, really take time to prepare coming several times to the same location if you can; keep it simple otherwise.
