“ Could there be a better Christmas Gift than attending a rooftopping workshop with Dany Eid and Daniel Cheong? For an avid landscaper such as myself, I can’t think of a better way to spending my weekend.
If you’re looking to shoot Dubai from a whole new perspective or to learn a bunch of tips and tricks of how to do it best, this workshop is for you. We started very early Friday morning in a stunning terrace of Shangri-La hotel that overlooks a spectacular knot of roads leading to the most iconic buildings you can think of in Dubai. We had clear skies that day and a bit of typical haze, but it created almost a low-hanging stunning looking cloud of soft light wrapping around the buildings and Dany helped out with the settings for how to best capture the ever elusive sunburst between the buildings. The location couldn’t have been chosen better for sunrise and even when the sun was already high there were a lot of interesting angles to shoot.
Fast forwarding to the second location which is a place that I haven’t seen many people shoot at that time - Central Park Towers DIFC, I could’t be happier to discover some new angle of our city that has been indeed photographed from every corner at this point. We got there at 4 pm and had plenty of time to asses the situation and find our vision. Even though we were a relatively big group of people, nobody was fighting for the shot and everyone settled down nicely for their own picture to be captured. Daniel was sharing his techniques of capturing enough photos for the perfect digital blend, while Dany tirelessly perfected everyone’s shot and pointed to the details that might have been overlooked. Any question that had arisen that evening been answered with 100% proficiency and it didn’t matter if it was a career advice or any kind of gear question. We finished the night by heading to the coffee shop where we all shared our challenges and successes of the photographic session. One of the best things that happened that night was that we walked in as strangers, but left as friends.
Next day we drove though thick fog to the classroom location to enhance our knowledge with some photoshop techniques. Daniel showed us on the examples of his own photos how to do some basic and quite advanced editing to achieve the best results, while Dany took photos of students. It is amazing to learn from such experienced people as Daniel and to be able to ask him questions about his workflow, and get first-hand advice on the editing of the challenging shots. At the end of the session we took a group photo, which is always a nice visual memory to keep.
The evening of the second day we had second sunset shoot and man, it didn’t disappoint. I’ve been in Dubai more than 6 years and I have never seen it being foggy at sunset yet. Until that very evening of our second shoot. Universe, I mean Dany and Daniel, just handed me a golden ticket of one in (who knows, maybe) lifetime opportunity to be above the clouds when the sun goes down and shoot Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Lakes Towers being wrapped by fog. That location being the Cayan tower, is a dream place for any cityscape shooter. You can literally walk 360 degrees on the last floor of that building and get any view your heart desires. Only few people have access to this spot, so if you want to witness it with your own eyes, this workshop is your unique opportunity to do that. Well, what can I say? It was stunning and overwhelming. The fog was majestical, we were all feeling as if we were present at the birth of the Universe.
All in all, I must say it was one of the most memorable weekends of last year, so if you’re looking to do something mindblowingly amazing and shake up your routine shooting envy-producing stunning photos for your social media, I highly recommend you join Dany and Daniel for their next workshop. Stop making excuses, just do it”
- Anna Shtraus
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