Pic(k) of the week 15: Lonely tree in a Dubai sandstorm
Last Thursday morning, Dubai woke up just when a heavy sandstorm was about to hit. Unlike what most people think, a sandstorm consists of very small dust particles and not so much of real sand flying through the sky. Knowing this, the terms sand and dust storms are often intermixed.
Over the years, I've seen visibilities go down to about 300m in these dust-sandstorms, but this one was clearly more intense with minimum visibilities below 150m.
Unlike the North-Westerly Shamals which are typical for the region and which originate in Jordan/Syria and Iraq, Thursdays' storm was the result of a large dust cloud over Saudi-Arabia. A moderate South-Westerly wind brought large amounts of dust to the region. At the peak of the storm the sky turned completely yellow, making for an out of this world atmosphere!
After breakfast, I grabbed the shot below of a lonely tree at the edge of the desert close to my home. The bright yellow color is 100% natural; if anything, I reduced the saturation somewhat to make it more believable! To me, the ladder leaning against the tree, finishes off the image.
Less than 24hrs later it was all over and we were back to the typical blue skies!
Image details:
Fujifilm X-T1 with the XF18-55
ISO 400, 44mm (67mm full frame equivalent), f8, 1/160s
RAW development in Lightroom 5.7
More of my "Nature of the UAE" images, can be found here.
Remember, "Bad weather always looks worse through a window" - Tom Lehrer
BJORN
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