Colourful, casual and full of contrasts, Puerto Rico delights the senses
Freelance travel article / Originally published in The National / February 12, 2011 / read on www.thenational.ae / view PDF of page A unique weather pattern endows Puerto Rico with lush rainforests and stark desert scapes. It’s early evening and the warm air of the Caribbean winter has begun to cool, but only slightly. Insects [...]
Behind the scenes: Celebrity portraits at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival
The Abu Dhabi Film Festival was October 14-23. I’ve already posted about live web-casting the festival’s opening and closing ceremonies, but that’s not all we were up to that week! During the days in between, I was able to shadow photographer Fabrice Dall’Anese, the festival’s official portrait photographer, as he and his crew created images [...]
Portrait of an artist
Masood Parvez has been sketching portraits of the leaders of the UAE for many years. A large collection of his work, 85 sepia-colored pencil drawings, is now on display in an exhibition called “Faces of Leadership” at the Ministry of Culture in Abu Dhabi. In the weeks leading up to the opening of the exhibition, [...]
Webcasting the Abu Dhabi Film Festival
The fourth annual Abu Dhabi Film Festival (previously known as the Middle East International Film Festival) took place this past week from October 14-23. A month before the film festival began, the deputy director of the festival approached The National with the idea to webcast the festival’s opening and closing ceremonies. Usually the rights to the [...]
The art of Abu Dhabi parking
Searching for a space Another Istabsir video! During the last week of Ramadan, The National’s photo editor took a photo on his iPhone of the parking situation that was below his apartment window. Parking lots in the “tourist club” neighborhood of Abu Dhabi have always been a mess, but this particular scene was spectacularly chaotic. [...]
A walk through historic Boston (travel article)
This is a little travel article that I wrote for The National on Saturday’s Travel section. Every week, page two of the section features an series called “My Kind of Place.” The idea is to have a small city guide that has been written by someone who has not just visited the city, but is [...]
The National has a new website! (I have broken links)
After many months of preparation, we’ve recently relaunched our website at The National. (New site!) Things are still a bit sticky on the new site, but everyone’s working hard to make it work. In the meantime, one unfortunate side effect of the transition to the new content management system is that all of the links on [...]
Gagosian’s contemporary masterpieces on display at Saadiyat
Last year, the Manarat Al Saadiyat gallery on Saadiyat Island held it’s first show with Disorientation II, an exhibition that featured the work of several Arab artists. For it’s second show, the gallery is displaying pieces from the large contemporary art collection of Larry Gagosian. This is the first time that Mr. Gagosian’s collection has [...]
Preserving the nation’s lullabies
Dr. Aisha Bilkhair works with the National Center for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi. One of our reporters interviewed her for an article about the importance of preserving the UAE’s oral history, particularly lullabies. We decided to do a quick video about her as well in order to use the nice recordings of lullabies [...]
An iftar for everyone
Ramadan just ended last week, and the Eid ul-Fitr holidays are now over, but we were able to slip one last Ramadan video in at the last moment! Free iftar meals have been served at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque every Ramadan since Sheikh Zayed died in 2004. Last year, The National’s magazine, M, did an [...]
Iraq’s next chapter
As the US withdraws its troops from Iraq, The National’s foreign desk is running a series on what the future will hold for the country. The stories are written by freelance reporter Nir Rosen, who is currently based in Iraq. The National sent one of its staff photographers, Andrew Henderson, to join Rosen in Iraq for two [...]
Following the water trail
Bottled water is extremely popular in the UAE. Nobody drinks the tap water, which is just desalinated water from the Arabian Gulf. Tap water will not make you sick, but many believe that it leads to some problems later on, such as kidney stones. So most of the drinking water in the country comes from [...]
Radwan al Hosani and the chocolate factory
It’s now Ramadan, so all of the reporters are working on Ramadan related stories. One of the stories that came up is about how chocolate and other sweets are one of the most popular gifts to give during Ramadan and Eid. The reporter’s story focused on an Abu Dhabi based company called Fuala. The reporter [...]
Ramadan lights up the corniche
This was a quick-hit Istabsir to use as a place holder during Ramadan. The Istabsir page has been pulled for the month and will be replaced by a cool series of Ramadan photo essays that the photographers have been working on. But in the meantime, the online version of Istabsir will be a bit stagnant, [...]
Sparky’s play zone
Sparky’s play zone: Shopping can be child’s play. Another Istabsir! This one actually ran on July 11, 2010. Indoor play zones are a big deal in the UAE. Every mall I’ve been to, including malls in small towns in the middle of what seems to be nowhere, have crowded children’s play zones. It gets so hot, [...]
Live webcasting from Industry Insights
On July 4, 2010, The National hosted its first Industry Insights forum. Media leaders from around the Middle East and the world were invited to discuss the future of TV revenues. This was to be the first in a series of forums, all hosted by reporters from The National, about relevant topics in business in [...]
The people on the bus go…
Journey to Liwa Another Istabsir! (Still working on that new website most days). For this Istabsir, we decided to take a bus as far into the desert as we could get. As a journalist here, I drive my (rental) car everywhere. It’s pretty safe to say that most western expatriates also stick to their own [...]
A hidden piece of the Emirates
Double enclave Another Istabsir video. We’ve been very busy preparing for our new website to launch, so we haven’t had the opportunity lately to do much other than work on the new site, and keep up with the weekly Istabsir. Fortunately, this one was lots of fun to shoot. Galen and I went hunting for [...]
Let the cranes begin
Ever-present but hardly noticed. Another video for the Istabsir series. (http://thenational.ae/istabsir) This time we focused on the cranes that litter the skyline of Abu Dhabi. We try not to use music for the Istabsir videos, but the video was a bit boring with nothing driving it. So the audio you hear is a bit of [...]
Women to watch
The National’s M magazine profiled 10 successful, ambitious and stereotype-breaking Arab women for an article called “Women to Watch.” I was asked to do some short videos with three of the women who agreed to be interviewed in front of the camera. Here, Elham al Qasimi, the first Arab woman to travel across the Arctic ice [...]
Riding the waves
“Riding the waves” is an installment in The National’s weekly photo essay and video series, Istabsir. For this week, we featured the jet-skis that are always riding around Abu Dhabi’s breakwater. The breakwater keeps the large waves of the gulf away from the calm shores of Abu Dhabi’s coastline, but it is also the place where [...]
From the top of Jebel Hafeet
“From the top of Jebel Hafeet: A sense of serenity” is an installment in The National’s weekly photo essay and video series, Istabsir. This week featured an evening on Jebel Hafeet, the second tallest mountain in the UAE. All of the guide books for the UAE say that you have to visit Jebel Hafeet, and [...]
Five fingers, one fist
This is an installment in The National’s weekly photo essay and video series called Istabsir. The Arabic word Istabsir roughly translates as “to attentively reflect on and contemplate with respectful consideration.” Every week, the essay focuses on one small aspect of UAE life by dropping the viewer into a new place. This week featured a [...]
BNF brings Latin rhythms to Dubai
The Dubai branch of the Colombia-based Ballet Nacional el Firulete (BNF) dance company dances the tango and other world dances in performances in Dubai and around the world. One of our reporters wrote a feature about the dance company for the newspaper, and I was asked to go along with her to a rehearsal to [...]
