Category: Dubai

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Museum of the Future Dubai

An impressive sculpture of Arabic writing is displayed on the side of a building, highlighting artistic expression and heritage.

The Museum of the Future was a major draw to get me back to Dubai. Seeing photographs online of this building it doesn’t seem real. I had to see it in person. It’s a massive building, 7 floors with a huge opening and viewing platform in the middle. You can see a few dozen people stood on the outside viewing platform. I knew I’d want to get a picture of the whole building. Doing my pre travel research, I used Google Street View to find the above view. Taken from the other side of Sheikh Zayed Road. The main highway through the centre of Dubai. After spending a few hours at the museum itself I was hungry and wondered how I would make it across the highway. At first a taxi seemed like the only option. After a bit of looking I saw there was an underpass for pedestrians. You can just see the entrance at the bottom centre of this photograph next to the white car. Even more lucky I found a Subway sandwich shop that had an upstairs with windows. This was the view from the Subway, my sandwich not included.

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Spiral staircase in the Museum of the Future

A black and white depiction of a spiral staircase, capturing its unique shape and artistic structure.

Walking inside the Museum of the Future I didn’t know what to expect aside from air conditioning. It was a feast for the eyes. This is the lobby with its amazing lit up calligraphy panels and world’s tallest double helix staircase. I chose to process the photograph as a black and white. This seems to draw more attention to the calligraphy on the walls and curved ceiling. It has also made the crowds of people at the bottom of the image less visually intrusive. The staircase was designed by artist Killa Design in 2019. I strongly recommend visiting the Museum of the Future but book your ticket online. Even doing this there was a short queue to get into the exhibitions.

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Hand Sculpture at Museum of the Future

A large hand sculpture displaying a sign that reads "peace," symbolising harmony and unity in a public space.

Visiting Dubai last year I knew I wanted to go to the Museum of the Future. Jumping out of a taxi I was greeted by this huge 12 metre tall hand sculpture in front of the museum. This is the iconic three-finger salute. A gesture coined by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The salute shows a W for Win, a V for Victory and an L for Love. As you can see the sculpture is reflective chrome. Lots of people were having their photographs taken in front of it. Typically I would wait to get a record of a sculpture without people in the photograph. This time I didn’t wait. Partly because it was very warm outside and partly because the people give the sculpture and museum building behind scale.

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Burj Khalifa at night

A night time image of the world’s tallest building in the middle with twelve tall buildings on the left and five on the right. All the surround buildings are less than half the height. In the foreground is a footbridge over a lake surrounded by hundreds of people.

The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. It is also a very challenging building to photograph. At 828 metres tall (163 floors) it requires a very wide angle lens. It’s so big you need to stand far away from it. But downtown Dubai is full of huge skyscrapers. On my first visit to Dubai in 2012, I took this photograph of the Burj Khalifa at night. The Address Downtown was out of my budget as a backpacker back then. Last year, I found myself on a 24 hour layover in Dubai and took the opportunity to capture this photograph. It was taken from the Club Lounge balcony of the Address Downtown hotel. In the foreground you can see the Burj Khalifa lake and bridge. Dubai Fountain shoots water up to 150 metres into the sky. I found this was distracting from the Burj Khalifa itself. If you look closely you can see the hundreds of people around the lake.