Zabeel Park Part One

Our second outdoor activity was held two Fridays ago at Zabeel Park in Dubai. It was at the tail-end of Ramadan and it was hot, which meant we had to be very sneaky about drinking any water or we’d end up in jail for the remainder of Ramadan.

We got there at 3.30pm as required and started just taking sample shots to get into the groove. It wasn’t until 5pm that we were let loose to start shooting photos for our next evaluation. By then we were almost dehydrated from thirst and not to mention near melting point due to the heat!

The subject of the activity was Composition and we were supposed to take shots keeping in mind the various composition themes we discussed. It was not as easy as it sounds!

Here are photos from that first day at the park, nothing major just bumming around.

Tire swing or something from the covered play area. I think I was going for Texture here.
No theme, just trying to get my metering right. This shot still has some overexposed bits though.
Ooh one of my favourite themes: Lines!
And more Lines! This was one big sunken garden/ampitheatre type thing on one end of this huge park.
Yes, more Lines. That’s the easiest theme around! Or this could be Contrast too between the green grass and the grey pavement.
We had a visitor and he was photographed like crazy but he was moving around so much that this is the sharpest photo I could get before he ran away. And what do you know, he came back to us just as we were about to have dinner!
More lines! A dried up leaf held up against the sun. I could have gone macro but it was difficult to get it sharp anyway.
Paging MGM. Are you aware of this possible copyright infringement into the franchise? Zabeel Park launched a theme ride/amusement park called Stargate which features 5 “worlds”, each with exclusive rides and attractions. Hmm, The Fifth Race ring a bell?
Pattern maybe? With all the tree trunks?
Shapes? This was four triangular flags on top of one another and if you looked up directly underneath the structure this is what you see.
When it got too dark, it was time to give the shutter speed a little nudge and take some shots of this view. This is obviously not qualified for the evaluation but I love me some night photography.
The wild and wacky members of Group 6 plus Peter who is our honourary member.
Bernie and I weren’t happy with the photographs we took so we decided to go back during the Eid holidays. And guess what, I will be blogging about that too! Apologies for subjecting you to all this.