Photographer & videographer in Old Dubai

Old Dubai is the only part of the city where the backdrop is older than its visitors: wind towers, coral-stone walls, carved doors, the Creek with wooden abras and dhows moored three deep. It is also lived in and worked in, which is the planning constraint. Al Fahidi’s lanes are best from first light to about nine, before the tour groups; the souks across the water in Deira are the opposite — dead in the early morning, alive from late afternoon, and full of traders who do not want to appear in someone’s holiday album. We ask before a stall is in frame, and in the spice and textile souks we shoot the colours and the lane, not the vendors.

The Creek is the connective tissue. An abra crosses from the Bur Dubai side to Deira in a few minutes for a small cash fare, and the crossing is both transport and a scene. Light on the Creek works in your favour from the Bur Dubai bank in the evening, when the Deira waterfront and its dhows take the low sun. Dress is modest throughout — shoulders and knees covered — out of respect, and because the mosques and heritage houses ask for it.