How does one luxury hotel stand out from the crowd, as one of several options in a city like Dubai, all competing for bookings from customers searching for the best accommodation in town?
Well, of course a lot of it comes down to the service they provide, recommendations and brand reputation. But aside from any “loyalty lock-in” that a particular customer may feel, it’s often that very first visual “wow” in a thumbnail that grabs their attention enough to want to explore further.
And with new customers who don’t already know how great you are, first impressions really do count.
With countless booking and comparison sites, a changing competitive landscape in the accommodation sector, challenges from all directions in the hospitality industry – every single thing that can be done to stand out, matters.
For InterContinental Dubai Marina, “standing out” is easy to do once the guest walks through the door. One look down from the incredible top floor Club Lounge reminds anyone who’d briefly forgotten they’re in the city of megascrapers and high-rise exactly where they are.
Yes, an iPhone (as below) is rather handy for those straight-down roof shots if you’re not too sure about camera-dangling…
But camera-dangling is what we do, and to show both the nighttime perspective of the area, along with the movements within the marina, a long exposure is what we needed. So yes, dangling (safely), a $70,000 Phase One kit over the edge of a building becomes just part of the evening’s entertainment…
It’s one heck of a view though, right?
And giving potential future guests a sense of that view is what hero shots are all about.
It’s that “I want to go there” moment that clicks in a customer’s mind as they’re scrolling through an otherwise repetitive stream of standard shots from countless properties, all vying for attention – that’s what we deliver.
Of course, I love a great city skyline – and Dubai has several; each of its districts and neighbourhoods holding their own unique urban style that can be captured in distinct ways.
The difference with the marina area, obviously, is the constantly changing nature of the harbour and its traffic. Light trails are no longer the reserve of cars on the road in this particular frame or field of view.
As the final rays of sunlight fall from the horizon, the city really does wake up when you’re sat watching the view – with hotels, residences entertainment venues and river cruises all coming alive as dusk moves into night.
(I may also have a 16k timelapse of this view, above – watch this space!)
It’s that iconic view that greets you from your balcony if you stay in a marina view room, residence, or while enjoying an evening wind-down in the Club InterContinental lounge upstairs.
The marina district itself, of course, is home to hundreds of towers – in all directions – and it’s impossible not to start building human narratives as you watch the world go by across the harbour of this modern, almost “compartmentalised”, way of living.
As a cityscape photographer, I could spend days just capturing the view that surrounds you from wherever you’re stood.
With a 151 megapixel Phase One IQ4, combined with some ridiculously sharp Rodenstock glass, it’s also possible to cut down the distractions and focus on little vignettes and sectors of the neighbourhood in isolation.
Combined with the glow of all that infrastructure, it’s simply fun to capture – again and again – while you’re watching over the city.
But what about the hotel’s features?
Now, much though I do love shooting cityscape skylines and amazing views from above (especially when it’s with a glass of red on a rooftop), we can’t forget that a huge amount of a hotel’s draw is from the property itself and the facilities it offers inside.
Capturing the view from a property is one thing – after all, that’s what a guest will see – but showcasing the hotel and the experiences that it provides, that calls for an entirely different approach; leaning on the team to highlight those features that need showcasing and getting them all looking their best.
A well-styled, well-stocked, carefully designed bar can certainly catch the eye in a photograph, but if it’s the guest’s attention we want to grab, it needs a certain amount of suggested activity in terms of the things we associate with a place such as Ginter (the clue being in the name…)
G&T, anyone? (Hey, it’s the evening somewhere in the world, right?)
Mixing the vibe of a late-night speakeasy with a daytime/sunset chillout lounge, this is about showcasing how Ginter feels at any time of day.
While I love looking down over cities to shoot wide, there’s also a practical reason for doing so with a longer lens from the very top of the building : distortion free shots of the facilities below. In this case, their incredible pool deck.
Moving back inside – yes, there are “standard” room shots that every property needs, but those still need to reflect the general feel of the living space a guest can expect. Light and airy is the vibe here, with a city skyline or marina view depending on which direction you’re facing.
Speaking of “light and airy”, a meeting / conference room that doesn’t feel like a windowless cell? I’ll take that as a win, and to be fair, this view is near-on “straight out of camera” – they’ve done a great job with these spaces.
Capturing the Hero(s)
So with a sample of interiors done, it was time to focus on that series of property Hero Shots – known as the ones that perfectly define and capture the external appearance of the hotel.
Shooting from street level, with a cityscape mindset, a lucky golden hour and passing boat helped deliver this view of the tower as it looked out over sunset.
But the challenge is, we want to see more of the hotel itself, its facilities, its pool deck and open spaces – and that’s tough to do from below. The mission was set: We need to get higher.
Too close, too high…
What’s that phrase? “Go big or go home?”
So naturally when I ask for somewhere high to shoot from, in Dubai terms that can mean only one thing – the highest neighboring building we can find.
As it turns out, we were both too close and too high – making our hotel tower view unusable through a mix of scale and highlighting all the hidden plant areas for their systems.
What also doesn’t help is the increasing use of “false roofs” – where architects and developers insist on building 3-4 story fake levels on the top of a building to give an appearance of height that’s not true. Photographically, we can’t get over those features and most definitely can’t set up on them.
(Side note – please, pleeeease, guys – STOP breaking and entering. Asking for permission, access, and putting in the legwork makes things just better for everyone. It’s not hard, it just takes some effort – the laziness and sensationalising just leads to more and more restrictions for all.)
So, what do we do instead? (As golden hour was fast approaching).
Run downstairs, of course.
Thanks to the help of a partner building in the same group, while still “up-close”, the perspective distortion was fixed for this warm reflecting tower shot of the InterContinental Dubai Marina stood tall in front of the nearby residences.
As night fell, we got that epic view showing the Club InterContinental lounge’s balcony on the top floor as it looks out over the activity on the streets and waterways below.
But it still wasn’t that hero shot – the one that shows the property, its location, its scale and design; in the context of the wider neighbourhood.
For that, we’d need to be further away, and higher up, but not too high – kind of in the middle somewhere…
…somewhere impractical, that would need either ladders or strong nerves with some wall-edge tripod feet. Luckily, we had both.
As a general rule I’ve learned over the years on commercial shoots (especially with hotels and hospitality), you’ll never get the sky you want, but you’ll always get another option – you just need to be ready to catch it.
Sure enough, in that blue-hour moment between dusk and night, as the marina’s slyscrapers lit up right on cue, we captured the mood.
Fun fact – shooting with an IQ4 150MP means we see everything in the frame, in detail.
Another fun fact – if ever you wanted proof, beyond the awards she’s won, that Antje is very much a General Manager who’s absolutely “part of the team”, it’s in watching her and the pool team run around to get each of the pool parasols quickly re-opened for us after dusk following a quick phonecall from across the harbour!
Why all the detail?
Shooting ultra-high resolution images has some huge advantages, but also some drawbacks (take the parasols as an example, something that wouldn’t have even noticed on a lower resolution camera frame.
So why go to all that bother to shoot in medium format?
Crops.
It’s as simple as that – we’re giving the hotel options.
Options to take crops from any wider image and deliver more intimate scenes without needing to come back to us to reshoot or waste time with multiple focal lengths in the day.
Options to reframe from portrait to landscape and vice-versa, without compromise, as we shoot wider/taller than needed to allow marketing teams to make their decisions later.
Options to focus on a different aspect of the frame than was originally conceived – maybe for a different purpose or feel when communicating with guests.
And options to highlight features in isolation, not just as part of a wider hero shot that encompasses all.
Photographically, of course, it also allows me to crop in to some of the funky light trails that the tour boats left behind on each shot of the marina – patterns that often surprise on the back of the camera compared to what our naked eye could see.
So there we go – hero shots for a hero hotel.
Genuinely, this is a team, and property, that truly has a special place in my heart. Nothing much can beat “the Dubai office” for comfort and views when I can base myself in the lounge to get some work done.
Antje and her amazing team, with Gao, Uwe, Zita, Sanjay and all the others that looked after us while there, make this an even more special place – beyond the incredible views and hospitality they offer as standard.
Plus, they do get credit for a great breakfast – perfeggtion each and every morning… (IYKYK)
And that’s gotta count for something, right?
Although someone did point me to other healthier alternatives in the morning while there – namely ornamental jars of various seeds and fruit things, accompanied by an ice cold Diet Coke (well, “zero”, grrrr).
I guess at least that keeps the Dubai heat at bay…!
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