A couple of inspiring photos posted by eFatima prompted me to post this photo I took of the Dubai Marina, sometime towards the end of 2004.From the 34th floor of a building under construction, the view was quite simply breathtaking. Two years on, and with a 100 more buildings completed or under construction, some residents find it breathtaking for entirely different reasons.
Canon EOS 300 D - Colour corrected/cropped in PS
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19 comments:
I think as much as having a nice body of water around, the Marina will, like Manhattan or Hong Kong, be popular for its cityscape.
Just the other day, someone who lives in one of those towers told me that he had 4 cm wide view of the Marina and the standing in the balcony was impossible considering the noise of the airconditioners in the next building?
EOS 300D?
Hmmm...I might not like some of your political views, but I do like your choice of camera. :)
Damn good camera isn't it?
Everyone can almost pass off as a pro if you have steady hands and know a bit of photoshop ;)
It is a great Camera. I recently bought the Sony DSC-R1, which I am really pleased with. Not an SLR of course, but still got a superb lens on it. I was torn between buying that and the Canon EOS 350D, which is a lovely camera for the price.
Anyway, I was really proud of it and showed it to my mate in Oman...
...who pulled out his Canon EOS-1Ds MKII plus 2 Canon zoom lenses and a Canon wide angle.
Made my Sony look like a disposable. :(
Beautiful picture!
Wooowwww... now thats a shot property magazines would love to get their hands on. Awesome dude. Can I visit and take try my camera too ;)
Lovely shot. Pity how it's turned out.
Great shot....I have been away for a year whats wrong with the marina?
efatima,
The view is no longer the same - with buildings all over the place. But you can pay a visit to one of the towers to take a snap - no restrictions that Im aware of.
Hesham,
Too many weird looking towers of all shapes and sizes there, so the classification that it is a high-end low-density project is lost.
Sorry bd, I know you live in the marina; im just jealous ;)
No offense, but I don't think it was ever advertised as low density. In fact, what the photo reveals along the perimeter of the waterway are all the empty plots, waiting to be built upon. It wasn't flattened out that way just to provide a nice view.
Even though the Marina will be dense in places you will always have the nice vista of the waterway disecting it all. That should always look nice, even with buildings of all kinds on either side.
I must add also, that from ground level the Marina environment is (or will be attractive) when one discovers that there are lots of views and angles that present themselves as you move along through it.
You can get a better sense of what I mean in A Walk in the Marina, and for a few photos, Marina Skies.
Brilliant pic, the 'colorise/sepia tint' effect, right? Wish you'd post more.
I'm not such a fan of the photo because of the rotation. It would have been better if it were correctly oriented. But, when looking at the full sized image, the lower portion with the lone motorboat coursing through the water is rather dramatic. That part I like.
Just a photo editing tip--I don't know so much about Photoshop as I seldom use it. But for Mac users, GraphicConvertor a shareware photo editing software is the best. It has some functionality that even photoshop does not, and is generally easier to use--like the rotation function where you can easily tilt a picture to an angel to get it straight.
bd,
The original masterplan and the building guidelines were compromised for many developers.
When it is fully completed, you will know what Im talking about.
Not just speculation- I was involved in 3 key projects in the Marina.
And regarding the photo, the rotation of the photo is precisely what leads the eye to the boat which makes the curves more dramatic. The tilting of photos for visual balance is what you get to read in photography tutorials. But they do say in the same breath, creative freedom - Nothing like it!
And nothing like Photoshop either. Just ask people whove been using it for 8 years :D
Hi Woke,
I can't argue with you on the question of creativity. I would agree that Photoshop can do a whole lot more than probably any other program, but I would say that apart from providing a myraid of special effects, GraphicConvertor excels in allowing quick an extensive corrective type editing. So, to take, say, a fuzzy, not well cropped, bad-color photo I find it easier to make the adjustments in GC. Also, if I may ask--as I'm not a big photoshop user--is it easy to add text to photos?
Again with GC it is such a snap to do that, but I haven't seen any appartent way to do that in PS.
Regarding the Marina, I did hear once a highly placed person in Emaar complain that the Marina, particularly with JBR has become much more dense than originally envisioned. I had asked about parks and green spaces and he seemed to suggest that that's pretty much out of the picture.
On the other hand when I visited the Dubai Marina sales center in early 2003, they were dsplaying a model of the Marina full of buildings.
...someone who lives in one of those towers told me that he had 4 cm wide view of the Marina and the standing in the balcony was impossible considering the noise of the airconditioners in the next building
I would think this is a bit of an exageration to make a point. Really... 4 cm? Granted, views will be blocked. The buyer should do a little research to get an idea of what will be coming up in front of and around his/her unit before buying. They shouldn't rely on what the developer or sales agent says, in whose interests it is to remain plausibly ignorant of such details. I imagine the AC noise is coming from the roof-top of a neighboring building. So, one should try to guage the height of surrounding buildings to be careful of such things.
It may be a lot of work, but then again the buyer will be investing hundreds of thousands of dirham.
I think on the whole the Marina will offer a variety of excellent views and won't be anything near as bad as the tower rows in Abu Dhabi, for example. There is a requirement that the minimum separation between towers--not counting the podium--is around 20 meters--I don't remember the figure exactly but it is much better than other places where towers can be as near as 1-3 meters apart.
bd,
The software as I see it is only as good as the graphic artist.
Im just comfortable with PS like many others- not because it offers more functionalities. Type editing is quite easy in PS too though I use Illustrator/Indesign for advanced editing and other printworks. Only minus is Adobe applications are expensive.
As for the Marina,
As any architect will tell you, the location and the surroundings of a tower or a building is vital to its design. Architects of the individual towers had to design without knowing what the surrounding towers will be like - or how tall it is going to be. The info provided by the masterplanner were inaccurate or often changed.
And the whole point of the masterplan is to stick to guidelines and the vision of the project so that conflicts does not happen after it is fully implemented.
As far as my experience goes, most developers are building with utter disregard for such guidelines(including the ones I were involved).
It is still one of the better conceived projects in Dubai, I agree. Compared to projects like the Jumeirah Lake Towers or the International City.
Yes, it looks like each developer is doing his own thing--thus we'll have quite an eclectic collection. A good or bad thing depending ones tastes, I guess. When I pass by the Marina I sometimes wonder what are some of the "Karma" type towers doing there. I don't mind eclectic myself as long as each tower or building is of quality build and not outlandish--like say a big purple concrete block (just a hypothetical example). Emaar's villa communities are filled with uniformity. But that works well with villas, I would say.
That's really great view. And I'm sure that the Dubai property near those places are very expensive.
I know this is a really old post, but hey. I saw the video of the original master plan for Dubai Marina. It was designed to give everyone a sea view, and shield them from the noise of Sheikh Zayed Road. So the tallest buildings would be on the road side, and they would gradually get shorter as they neared the sea. And then JBR and greed came along and stuffed up the entire project. Grrr.
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