Photographer & videographer in Downtown Dubai

Most people book Downtown for the evening because that is when the fountain runs, and most of the frames they actually wanted are morning frames. From the lake promenade and the Souk Al Bahar bridge the tower is to the north-west, so the rising sun lands on the side you are looking at and the glass goes gold from top to bottom in the first forty minutes. In the evening the sun goes down behind it: the tower becomes a silhouette against a bright sky, and the good frames only start again at blue hour, when the building lights come on and the fountain begins its half-hourly shows. A session that wants both is two short sessions, not one long one.

The second thing to plan around is people. At seven in the morning the promenade belongs to cleaners and joggers; from about six in the evening, and all of Friday and Saturday night, the bridge and the lake edge are shoulder to shoulder, and UAE privacy law means a frame with identifiable strangers in it is a frame we do not deliver. Indoors is a separate jurisdiction: The Dubai Mall and the observation decks are private property with their own security, and a photographer with a professional camera and a tripod will be stopped there. Downtown sessions are built on the public promenade, Burj Park and the Opera plaza, with the mall used as a cool corridor between them rather than a backdrop.