Abu Dhabi, X100VI, and (Re)Finding Joy in Daily Shooting
This was the view from my hotel window - I was based in Abu Dhabi for 27 nights. You can see the Al Hosn Festival in the background, with Qasr Al Hosn further behind.
I’ve made it no secret that I’ve struggled a bit with my photography in the last 18 months or so. In my last blog six months ago, I wrote about wanting to pick up my camera more and feeling that spark to shoot again. Well, that did not happen. I think other than my annual SCC 7s shoot, I don’t recall picking up my X-T5. I said back then that it was very likely that my next post and next uploads would only be after my next trip, and that is what has happened. I am in a different place to where I was six months ago though, and let me explain why.
For one, I bought myself a new camera in December. The Fujifilm X100VI. Yes, that trendy camera on Tiktok. I know I definitely didn’t need it - I have literally the exact same focal length on my X-T5 (with a wider aperture), but I got it for myself as luxury in December at the end of what was a challenging year, especially professionally. While I do know that gear acquisition syndrome (G.A.S.) doesn’t make me a better photographer, I think it is fair to say that sometimes a shiny new toy does make you want to go out and play more. Having toyed around with the idea of the X100VI for a few months (probably around when I got back from Kyrgyzstan), I think there is a part of me which was probably waiting for this camera as the “excuse” to start shooting more, which is what the X100VI has made me want to do. Throughout December and early-January, I found myself walking around Singapore with my camera more than in years. Even though the shots were (mostly) terrible, I felt more free to experiment and play around.
Second, I just got back from a month in Abu Dhabi for work, where I had the time and chance to explore almost daily with my new camera. A big part of why I got the X100VI now was to bring it with me here. I wanted something smaller and with less faff than my X-T5. but just as powerful. My trip has also given me a lot of time to consider a lot of my photography assumptions and beliefs, which is always fun. As you’ll see, I’m quite impressed with the results.
Anyways, this won’t be too long, but I wanted to show some of the Abu Dhabi photos, and to more generally provide an update as to where I am vis-a-vis my photography. I also thought it would be fun to talk about my experience using the X100VI. While this is definitely not a review, I thought it was worth sharing my experience with a new camera and how that impacted my workflow and processes. In doing both, I hope to show how I was able to (re)find a bit of spark in my photography.
I love the layering of this shot, because you can so clearly see the different generations of buildings in Abu Dhabi as you move through the frame.
I enjoyed my time in Abu Dhabi more than I thought I would, even if it did take me a while to get my bearings. It was an incredibly international environment, where I found myself surrounded by people from all around the globe and I could eat a different cuisine daily. It was a city of such big contrasts - from the vast open spaces surrounding the new and shiny monuments such as the Sheik Zayed Mosque, Qasr Al Watan (the Royal Palace) and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, to the chaotic and slightly claustrophobic city centre (where I was based) which made me feel like I was in Istanbul or parts of Hong Kong even. The streets seemed to come alive at night especially, where it felt like the smell of kebabs or curry permeated from every other storefront.
Photographically, while I very much enjoyed shooting at the more famous and touristy locations, I think many of my most enjoyable shooting opportunities were when I was just walking around (mostly looking for food). In fact, many of the shots here were walking distance from my hotel. My conclusion after a month there is that there is a very clear way that Abu Dhabi wants to be seen and to present itself. As a case in point, at the Sheik Zayed Mosque, there are designated photo zones, and you get herded and chased away if you step one foot beyond. Maybe it was dealing with the crowds and other tourists, but I felt I was having more fun shooting in the city itself than at the various monuments, where every shot and every angle has been calculated and pre-determined. As visually stunning as the various monuments and museums were, in some ways maybe I felt like they had less character?
Another thing I found incredibly challenging was to trying to find “genuine" and local culture. Let me first caveat and ask a rhetorical question: in a city which is 90% foreigners, what even is local? What is genuine? Anyways, I think that there was a very clear and sanitised view of what Emirati culture is, largely stemming from their historical Bedouin roots. Right across the road from my hotel, they were holding the Al Hosn festival, which was supposedly a “celebration of Emirati culture and heritage” with performances and “demonstrations of artisanal crafts including pottery and weaving”. While it sounds like my type of environment, it felt rather contrived (not to mention expensive to enter). I tried to explore this question through food and by visiting a few markets (I will share something soon), but otherwise it still feels like an unanswered question.
I was going for my evening walk when I spotted this shop from across the road. I ended up standing in the reservation between two roads for close to an hour waiting for people to pass by. I ended up with several hundred shots of differing levels of business and clutter. In the end, I liked having a slightly simpler image with fewer moving people.
For the reasons above, the X100VI felt very familiar to me, and so it didn’t take long for me to get used to the new camera. With that said, being a much smaller and perhaps more “limited” camera (due to the lack of interchangeable lenses), it ended up being used very differently. Fairly naturally, I found myself walking around with it daily, whether I was going for a big day out or just to get a shawarma down the road.
“One of the most common pieces of advice given to an aspiring street photographer is to bring your camera everywhere, so that you are always ready to shoot. I’m not going to say that it is bad advice, but I’ll admit that it is something I’ve tried committing to multiple times throughout my life, but that it just doesn’t work for me. As much as I love photography, I find it difficult to be “in the zone” while I’m out running errands or am with friends, or conversely when I am trying to shoot I don’t want to be distracted. I find it much more conducive to both my photography and my life that I dedicate specific time for photography, and then go about my day. This allows me to feel more deliberate and engaged with my craft, rather than regarding my photography as a series of opportunistic snapshots.
This was at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which was really fun to shoot in but also very, very crowded. I was lucky I walked by and saw man sitting/drifting off to sleep on the bench. I really like how the red strands out.
I wrote the above close to three years ago in June 2023, and while I am not cringing (that much), I think my time in the UAE has shifted my perspective a bit . I think the essence of the advice about always having a camera is not about always being “in the zone” and prioritising photography above all else, which truthfully is difficult whether you are travelling or at home. Instead, I now see it as lowering the barriers to shooting and allowing for more opportunities to experiment and play. Yes of course, there are times where it is good to be fully focused and in the zone, but also there are so often times where you are just going about in your day and something catches your eye. Having a camera just means you are so much more likely to pick up the camera and try, experiment and thereby learn. As time goes on, I increasingly accept that consuming photography can only get you so far, and that like anything else, to improve one needs to spend a lot more time trying and doing. And that’s what I think this new camera allows me to do.
With my X-T5, while still my trusty workhorse camera, I do feel a sense of “seriousness” whenever I use it. Everytime I pick it up I feel like I need to produce professional level results. The X100VI, on the other hand, lets me feel like I am playing, and that the photos are for fun. And maybe that was I needed. Through this whole period of struggle, I don’t think I ever lost my passion for photography, or felt like I wanted to give up. Instead, maybe I was just putting too much pressure on myself. Maybe I just need to relax, to have fun, and to go back to what I enjoy most.
At this point, I don’t want to make any big promises. Working life is indeed busy, and it is hard to balance between everything else going on. What I will say is that my time in the UAE and a new camera has made me feel more excited about my photography in a way I’ve not felt in a while, and I’ll see where and how that feeling takes me. I definitely feel less pressure to pick up the camera, which is a good start. Maybe I do need to be more proactive with finding opportunities to shoot in Singapore. Life is going to change again and may become very exciting quite soon, but I will save that for another time.
