Driving around the streets of Abu Dhabi, the glimpses of tower cranes and rising buildings hint at the development of the nation’s capital.
But it is only from the air that the full, astonishing vision of the city’s future is revealed.
These photographs show the Abu Dhabi that most of us have never seen. They were taken by National photographer Silvia Razgova on an assignment arranged by Tourism and Development Investment Company to record work on the new Louvre Abu Dhabi.
En route to Saadiyat Island, Razgova captured several other grand projects transforming the city, including the nearly completed campus of New York University and a view of the skyline of downtown Abu Dhabi that would give Manhattan a run for its money.
To get her shots, Razgova used two cameras with fixed lenses – as she points out, it is not a good idea to change lenses several hundred feet above the ground – and was herself securely tethered to the helicopter.
An additional problem was the vibration and airflow from the helicopter in flight. To overcome this she closed her aperture to f5.6 and increased the shutterspead to more than 1/1,000 of a second.
The view was so spectacular, that, as she puts it: “Once in a while I’d put the camera down and simply marvel at the feeling of being a very lucky person who gets to ... fly in a helicopter with its doors off while sticking her face into the wind.”
For an exclusive view of the Louvre Abu Dhabi from the air, see tomorrow's Weekend section and check out our website www.thenational.ae/multimedia for more of Razgova's photographs.
