Photographs capture Dubai about the clouds

There aren’t many days that the sun is not shining in Dubai…  but the foggy days are the ones Albert Dros patiently waits for. The Dutch photographer is known for landscape photography; he is always ready for unique shots which run the gamut from volcanos to  solar eclipses to abstract nature.

Dros has traveled the world in search of the most breathtaking sites to capture. From his portfolio, it appears as though the photographer has been almost everywhere. Some of the most notable spots include Iceland’s mesmerizing geothermal pools and Kyrgyzstan’s stunning canyons. Recently however, Dros took at trip to Dubai and captured otherworldly images unlike any we have ever seen before.

Dros wants his photographs to feature the Earth’s beauty in a way that highlights how humans interact with nature and this was exactly what he produced with the Dubai series. The photographer captured the skyscraper city in a completely different way than how they’d previously been featured. Blanketed in a thick fog, only some of the city’s tallest buildings peeked out from the clouds and gave an appearance of a floating universe.

The photographer had visited Dubai several times over the past six years in order to shoot the city’s spectacular skyline. However, he was never able to capture the famous “Dubai Fog” that is quite rare. Dros visited Dubai in February in order to attend the Sharjah Xposure photo festival after winning first prize in the Drone Category.

Dros told My Modern Met, “I have been photographing Dubai for over six years and I have always been jealous of people seeing and photographing the city above the fog. It usually only happens a handful of days each year and I have never been lucky to catch the right timing, up until recently. I even changed my flight a few times because of positive humid weather predictions, but it never worked out.” Well, this time it did!

Incredibly, Dros shot all the photographs from high buildings without the use of a drone. There was a lot of finess that needed to be assured in order to access the areas from where the best images could be captured. Dros said, “It’s not easy to access these buildings. When I first visited Dubai about six years ago, things were much different. It was easier to access the skyscrapers and by asking the management nicely, you could often just go up and photograph from the roof. Luckily, I have many friends and contacts in Dubai that helped me to access the skyscrapers. And there was also a bunch of rooftop bars and hotels that offer spectacular views. By asking them nicely in advance, they often respond in a positive way.”

Dros was like a kid on Christmas morning with these “dream conditions.” Hoping to capture different perspectives and having enough time, for once, the photographer took this rare opportunity to shoot from different buildings.

These photographs were taken on Dros’ first trip that involved an airplane following Covid. The anticipation of such travel after so long relatively “stationary” further fuels Dros’ fire to shoot the perfect series.