Video of 24-hour photo series on Dubai big hit

Donovan was the first one to put out the video of a series of photographs captured for a global time-lapse project that took place on the historic day last week.

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Published: Sat 19 Nov 2011, 9:25 AM

Last updated: Mon 27 Feb 2023, 10:02 AM

Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe have now watched how the skyline over Downtown Dubai changed over 24 hours on the magical day of 11.11.11, thanks to a YouTube video posted by a Dubai-based photographer.

Known for his panoramic and aerial shots of Dubai, Donovan was the first one to put out the video of a series of photographs captured for a global time-lapse project that took place on the historic day last week.

Involving a network of photographers in London, Dubai, Shanghai, Auckland, San Francisco and Sao Paulo, the “1day 6cities” project aimed to create a unique 24-hour snapshot of the day across six very different cities around the globe.

At exactly 00.00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC/GMT), photographers in each of these cities captured their first image in an event that saw photographs being taken every minute in the next 24 hours. Apart from Donovan, a bunch of shutterbugs who took part in the Dubai leg of the project included 10 members of the “Bewildered Photographers Group” from the Emirates Photography Club, according to the website of a ‘Meetup Group’ of the club.

Donovan, who took the first “gigapan” panorama shot of Burj Khalifa and surrounding areas known as The Centre of Now to make a 45-gigapixel collage, the world’s largest digital photograph last year, chose the same venue for the latest project.

While Dubai will have to wait for some time to host an exhibition of the edited films and stills taken here, as promised by the organisers, Donovan’s video has already become a hit on the Internet.

According to gizmodo.com, which said the video is so beautiful that it seemed unreal, Donovan took 2,880 shots over 24 hours, one every 30 seconds starting at 4am local time. The two-minute-long video shows the amazing reflection of the sun and moon going up and down Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, off Dubai’s plush Shaikh Zayed Road.

With the background score of ‘Out of the Darkness’ by Paul Mottram and the images of the skyscrapers and their shadows, the stunning video leaves a lasting impression on the viewers.