Amazing Cityscape Photographs, Taken with a Pilot's eye view

Amazing Cityscape Photographs, Taken with a Pilot's eye view

Even with an abundance of incredible views, you still need an outstanding eye for composition and a highly developed photographic technique to get pictures like these

We tracked down Photographer Karim Nafatni, a Dubai resident who is an airline pilot in his day job. 

When did you become interested in photography? Was it during your childhood?

I enjoy photography since I was a kid, but i really feel in love with the art when i bought my very first DSLR camera 3 years ago.

You live in Dubai now, but where did you grow up?
I was born in Tunisia and was raised in Italy, Switzerland and the USA.

When did you become a "serious" photographer?
After buying my first DSLR camera, which gave me the chance to explore and learn more about the art.

You specialise in architecture and cityscapes. Presumably Dubai is a perfect place for you?
I cannot think of a better place than Dubai when it comes to cityscapes and architecture! It is an amazing city to shoot and I encourage every architecture fan to visit.

What are the challenges of shooting cityscapes? How do you avoid taking pictures that are full of people?
I think one of the biggest challenges when it comes to this type of photography is finding the vantage point.Having previously been a pilot, I was amazed at the way the city appeared from above and this is the major reason why i got into cityscaping. But my desire to look from above was not quite satisfied when I began shooting buildings and architecture from ground level - I had an overwhelming desire to be on top of the structures, to look from above as I had from the cockpit of my aircraft. I rapidly found myself shooting Dubai's amazing cityscape from the roof top of skyscapers and that quickly became one of my trademarks.

You seem to use HDR in some of your work. Can you tell us something about your technique/workflow?
Some of my pictures look like HDRs but they are not - in fact and most of them are single exposure shots. What i do is that i tweak the shadows and highlights to obtain the maximun range the picture can give me making sure I always shoot in RAW format.This type of processing gives that HDR look to some of my pictures. Another technique i often use as well is called Digital Blending and this one involves shooting 3 or more exposures and later i do blend them together through Photoshop using the Layer Masks technique.

You can see many more of these amazing pictures at Karim's own website, here