The Dubai Chronicles

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

part ii - madinat encounter

few hours after my arrival in dubai, eric fadgie, a fellow treklens member called me up and invited me to go for a photoshoot at the madinat jumeirah. spending my "holiday" to the fullest, i went with them.

it's been a while since i visited madinat jumeirah. not knowing any restrictions, we took out our "big guns" and started shooting for subjects. since the weather was humid, our cameras produced moisture and we had trouble in operating them. so we waited for few minutes just to let the cameras leveled with the current temperature and to disappear the moisture.

fog in the afternoon? the effects of moisture to camera...

shutter speed: 1/200 sec, aperture: f/7.1, iso: 200, focal length: 18mm, wb: auto, af-s nikkor 18-70mm dx, kaiser 67mm polarizing filter, manual focus

then we headed down near the artificial lagoon when we were stopped by the guard.

"nikon is not allowed here." the guard said.

"what? how about canon?" i inquired.

"you have to take permission from the management. this is not allowed..." ignoring my inquiry.

"this is discrimination. you only allow other cameras and not this."

"only small cameras allowed," he insisted

while arguing, we saw a tourist handling a same camera capacity (350d i think) and taking shots in the area in an abra.

upon seeing him i went back to the guard and argued, "you see him? he's using the same camera type as mine but you didn't stopped him. now this is what i called discrimination. we have rights since we're "tourists" and do you know the rights of the photographers?"

"yes, i know what it is." he replied.

"tell me then."

"if you want to take pictures, just ask the management..."

now, he thinks that he really knows what he's talking about. feeling irritated already, i asked him to call his manager and file a complaint. good thing the manager is present and he's kabayan. after telling him the problem and the reason of going there that it's for personal, not for any commercial work, he allowed us but with caution.

sand sculptor

shutter speed: 1/20 sec, aperture: f/4.5, iso: 320, focal length: 70mm, wb: auto, af-s nikkor 18-70mm dx, kaiser 67mm uv filter, manual focus

gio and the burj

shutter speed: 1/30 sec, aperture: f/10, iso: 200, focal length: 22mm, wb: auto, af-s nikkor 18-70mm dx, kaiser 67mm uv filter, manual focus

inside the madinat souk

shutter speed: 1/13 sec, aperture: f/3.5, iso: 200, focal length: 18mm, wb: auto, af-s nikkor 18-70mm dx, kaiser 67mm uv filter, manual focus

but that spoiled our momentum. we did a few shots and left for a different venue instead...

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