Beautifully Nostalgic Photos Of The Constant Change In Dubai
British photojournalist Alex Atack captures the constantly shifting landscape of Dubai, his adopted home. He calls the series Under Construction, illustrating how construction is constant and Dubai’s citizens still live amongst the change.
And for Atack, change happened quickly, often moving things around during childhood summers abroad. He never came home to the exact same city.
“Growing up in Dubai, my parents would take me and my siblings to the UK over the summer holidays,” Atack recalls. “Arriving back to the UAE after five or six weeks away, we’d look out of the window of the car on the way home from the airport and point out all of the things that had changed in the time we’d been gone. A new skyscraper would’ve started construction on what used to be an empty sandlot, or a complex of villas had been flattened to make way for a hotel, or what used to be small roundabout was now on its way to becoming a spaghetti junction.”
His photos capture the color and culture of United Arab Emirates. But there’s a tinge of melancholy. In a world where nothing ever stays the same, you constantly experience loss, even if on a small level.
“The city changed so quickly, and it wasn’t sentimental about what it got rid of,” he writes. “And this is what Dubai has become known for; these construction projects are what you see on travel brochures and TV shows around the world.”
More: Alex Atack, Instagram h/t: creativeboom
