I have been lucky enough to visit Dubai a number of times through my career. My first trips were back around the Millennium, at which point I found the city to be developing fast, but still under control. However my journeys over the past 5 or 6 years have really shown the city to be growing at a faster pace than it can manage. To my eyes it looks like many of the new residences and office buildings are remaining empty, and the only ‘new’ developments that are really showing success are the hotels – in fact a colleague told me last year that Dubai intends to build 500 more in the run up to the World Expo, which will be held in Dubai in 2020.
I stayed at the Hilton at Jumeirah Beach, which was just next door to a new development, The Beach. It seemed the workers on site were working 24 hours a day to meet their deadlines – I could certainly hear them each night as I was going to sleep, and again once I woke up. Not much time for photography on this trip, but I was happy with a couple of shots that I did manage to take.