Dubai in 20,000 Pictures

Dubai is home to a face paced and ever changing environment, but it's not often someone captures the buzz of the city like Richard Bentley's 20,000 photos of Dubai. 

A British photographer whose time-lapse films have attracted thousands of hits online has released a new work that aims to capture Dubai's restless, bustling nature.

Dubai 3.0 looks at first glance as if it has been shot using a video camera. In fact, it is made up of 20,000 still photographs.  He left a gap of between three and eight seconds between each shot, and each second of the completed film consists of 25 of the photos run together.




In the opening scene, the Dubai Fountain can be seen flaring briefly at the foot of the Burj Khalifa before the view changes slightly as the same location is seen across the rippling surface of a swimming pool.

The viewpoint continues to change as different parts of the city - including the Dubai Marina, Business Bay and Atlantis, The Palm - are showcased.

Mr Bentley's says  "Dubai is a photographer's paradise if you're into architecture," he said. "That's what really captured my imagination.  The lighting in Dubai is incredible at night. In daytime it doesn't capture the imagination quite so much but, after dark, Dubai comes to life."

The visuals are accompanied by a haunting soundtrack, penned specifically for the montage by the composer Athar Saeed.

"What I'm trying to convey with the time-lapse is to represent the city in the best possible artistic way that I can and bring it to the internet. Dubai is a very fast, very bustling, 24-hour city," Mr Bentley said.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than this slideshow is worth 20 million!