One of our destinations on our list of Dubai was the Burj Al Arab – the most luxurious hotel in the world. The hotel is built on an artificial island and only accessible by one bridge. You must have a reservation of some kind (room, drinks, restaurant) to enter the hotel. This is checked just before you can enter the bridge. We chose the least expensive reservation: Afternoon tea in the Skyview Bar. The Skyview Bar can be seen in the top left part of the building.
Driving to Burj Al Arab
The interior of the Burj Al Arab is decorated with gold leaf and bright colours, and of course extravagant. Stairs to upper level
Burj Al Arab Interior
Burj Al Arab Lobby
View inside the Burj Al Arab while looking up
From the Sky View Bar you have a good view of the surroundings. Jumeirah Beach Hotel
Souk Madinat
Outside the hotel you can see the Teflon Sail which forms the front of the hotel. Burj Al Arab Teflon Sail Front
The hotel has its own special logo in stone. Burj Al Arab Stone Carving
Later that day, we could see the Burj Al Arab from the Souk Madinat during the sunset – a beautiful end of a nice day. Burj Al Arab at sunset
Burj Al Arab from the Souk Madinat
Jumeirah hotel guests can enjoy free abra rides on the water canals of the Madinat Souk. During the exposure of the photo above an abra passed by. You cannot see the abra itself, just the red and white lights on it.
Night photography was one of the topics of the photography course (see here, here and here). A friend of mine told me Boekhandel van Pampus organized a Night Safari to take photos in a new area of Amsterdam: IJburg. I decided to take part in the night safari. (Nice to know: I used a photo of the bridge connecting IJburg to the main land as a banner for my blog. Click here and here)
The night safari was organized to introduce a new book on IJburg. Louis Stiller and Jabik de Vries wrote “Wachtland - de nachtwaker, de fotograaf en het wordende land”. During the evening and late at night Jabik photographed various locations and wrote about the thoughts he had while waiting for the shutter to close. Jabik visited the island in the first three years of its construction. At that time Louis Stiller wrote about building projects in the Netherlands. They found each other and started this project.
The night safari started at a part in IJburg which is still under construction.
Jabik told us of his experiences while taking the photos. Most of the time you are all alone in the dark. Taking photos in the dark is entirely different from taking photos during daytime. It is quiet, almost no people present, and you cannot always see what will be registered. Also, the camera sees the scene very different than the human eye. Exposure times vary between seconds to several minutes. Camera settings are actually rather simple. The focusing distance is close to infinity. Jabik used aperture settings of about f/5. White balance can be set to Auto. I used the daylight setting to review the photo on screen, and saved the photos in RAW format to make the final decision for white balance later behind the computer. The Canon TC-80N3 Timer Remote Controller proved very useful to set exposure times longer than 30 seconds.
Jabik suggested to to take a photo which included the finished part of the residential area and the part being built. It shows a nice contrast:
Residential Area IJburg Canon 50D | 17-55mm @ 50mm | 35 secs @ f/5.6 | ISO 100
When I was framing the photo I could only see the street lights and the right hand part of the building. The following day I noticed the red traffic post in the lower left corner of the photo. That is the beauty of evening / night photography: you discover a lot of details in your photo later behind your computer.
Car Trails Canon 50 D | 17-55mm @ 43mm | 148 secs @ f/8 | ISO 100 In the last 20 seconds of the exposure a car passed by and nicely lighted up the lower part of the photo for me.
Jabik suggested to make a photo of the stars in the sky. As there were no planes flying that night (volcano ash, click on this [link]) all the dots and stripes you see in the sky are real stars!
Star Trails Canon 50D | 17-55mm @ 17mm | 90 secs @ f/4.5 | ISO 200
Of course some passages were read from the book Wachtland.
Self Portrait Canon 50D | 17-55mm @ 17mm | 60 secs @ f/5.0 | ISO 100 Notice the two shadows because I was lighted by two different lamp posts.
Looking into the distance Canon 50D | 17-55mm @ 17mm | 149 secs @ f/4.5 | ISO 200 At this spot it was pitch dark. I only framed for the horizon and I could just see in the distance that another person was setting up his tripod. The yellow lights in the lower part of the photos are greenhouses. The white part next to the greenhouses is made by the city of Almere.
Thursday 15 April 2010 turned out to be a very special day. The evening before a volcano eruption in Iceland released large amounts of ash particles in the upper atmosphere. The wind patterns dispersed the ash clouds over large parts of the UK, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and other countries. Late Thursday large parts of the European air space were declared a no-fly zone. This was the first time in history a specific warning for volcanic ash (Volcanic Ash SIGMET) was given in The Netherlands.
At this moment the air space is expected to be closed until Saturday, 6:00. The situation will then be reviewed.
The Royal Meteorological Institute (KMNI) predicted a special red sunset for Thursday because the ash particles in the atmosphere disperses the sunlight. So, that day, before I joined the IJburg Night Safari, I made photos of the sunset at Zeeburg, Amsterdam:
The New York Times has a fun experiment at Sunday, May 2. They want you to send in a photo of a moment at Sunday, May 2, 1500 hours UTC. All images will be collected and put into a mosaic. What matters is the thought behind the picture, not the technique. Why did you select this photo, and what are you thinking?
Did you enjoy the ‘A Virus Walks Into a Bar’ video? It turns out that the entire talk is available on the web. Click on the photo below to start the video or click here to watch the video.
The Ibn Battuta Mall has a wonderful China Court. A full size Chinese sailing vessel can be seen, and of course the wonderful decorations inspired by Chinese temples. You can also see the Tony Romas Restaurant where we had spare ribs, Dubai style.
The panorama was shot ‘guerilla style’ (no tripod, rotate on your left foot), so parts of the panorama are not so sharp as I wanted them to be. Click here to see a larger version of the panorama.
