To continue with the theme from last week's Photo Of The Week at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhbai, here is another signature 7-star hotel. The Burj Al Arab is well known as being the famous "sailboat" shaped structure in the middle of Jumeirah Beach. On my last trip to Dubai, I managed to get a night photo of this hotel but after a couple of years, I wanted a new perspective on it.
After finding out that it's almost impossible to get an open door helicopter in the U.A.E., I decided to take a regular touristy helicopter ride anyway to see what I could get. The problem with these rides are that your images aren't clear since you're shooting through the window of the heli. Usually, the colors become distorted, you see smudges and scratches on the glass, reflections get in the way, etc. I worked around these issues pretty well and this was one of the clearest of the bunch.
I was surprised that I was able to get such a clear shot of the Burj Al Arab considering how far we were. I was using my buddies 55-210mm Sony zoom lens for this so I managed to get pretty close. One thing I didn't realize until after was that this is a view of the hotel that you don't usually see since everyone else sees it from the land or the beach. Another thing that I like about this image is how there's almost nothing else like this around for miles. Usually, when you see skyscrapers or super structures, they're part of a city or skyline of some sort. This is just pure architectural pornography with nothing but clear blue waters and a small city that fades into the sandy horizon.
I have many more ridiculous aerial photos from this flight that I will include in my completed UAE blog post coming soon!
Sony A7RII, Sony 55-210mm @ 158mm (iso100, f/6.3, 1/500s)