Book review: Abuthina, J. (2015). Dubai: Behind the Scenes; Memories of Satwa; The Best of Dubai Shop Names.

• Abuthina, J. (2015). Dubai: Behind the Scenes. Dubai: Inside Dubai.
• Abuthina, J. (2015). Memories of Satwa. Dubai: Inside Dubai.
• Abuthina, J. (2015). The Best of Dubai Shop Names. Dubai: Inside Dubai.

I don’t usually rush out to buy books, but I was eager to see these.  I take the same kind of photos of the same places as the photographer whose work is presented here, Mr Jalal Abuthina, though so far as I know I haven’t yet run into him in any of the neighborhoods in which we work.  Two of the three books feature Forwards and Introductions, but are of such a general nature as to be unhelpful in learning much about Abuthina’s approach, method, philosophy, or the history of the work presented.  A more informative profile of the photographer can be found at The National, a leading UAE newspaper, or at the photographer’s website.  From these we learn that Abuthina has been active for a little over a decade, though many of the images in these books appear to be of more recent vintage.  The Burj Khalifa, a building that was completed only in 2008, for example, features in the background of several of the Satwa photos.  I’ve also taken images of some of the same graffiti, which doesn’t typically remain for very long in Dubai.

Physically, all three books are identical:  same size, paper, and binding.  Cover design is about as simple as possible, with the title in block letters above a representative image.  Shop Names is the shortest of the three at 128 pages and no introductory text.  In fact the photographer’s name is nowhere to be found in this volume. Satwa is 136 pages and includes a Foreword by Yasser El Shestawy, a professor at the Urban Research Lab of UAE University, as well as an Introduction by the photographer.  A slightly different Foreword and Introduction by the same writers are included in Dubai, the longest of the three at 204 pages.

Book design is simplest and, apart from images splashed across the fold in a book that won’t open flat without cracking the spine, perhaps at its best in Shop Names.  Color is as close to what you might see if you walked through these neighborhoods.  The Satwa images, on the other hand, have been given a sepia cast, while those in Dubai look like old polaroids, with a heavy tint of blue and orange.  (The layout in fact incorporates mock Polaroid frames.)  Both Satwa and Dubai feature a couple of fold-out pages, but given the lack of landscapes there doesn’t seem to be much point.  The two pamphlet inserts in Dubai - collections of portraits and images of the port - feel equally gimmicky. There is some repetition of images across all three volumes, but not excessive.

If you’re on a budget, the most dispensable of the three is Shop Names. Most of the images are fairly straightforward in composition, hoardings and storefronts shot on the perpendicular.   Anyone who has travelled a bit has seen numerous examples in all corners of the non-English speaking world or in abundance on the internet.  Satwa features much the same subject matter as Dubai but is limited to this one neighborhood.  The Dubai book represents the better option as it contains more images without the sepia tint.

As for the photos, there is a good variety of portraits taken with at least tacit permission, as well as several taken without.  (Which makes me wonder what advice publishers received regarding the UAE law on publishing images without permission.)  A number of obvious ethnic groups are represented, most especially south Asian (which is in fact the majority population of the UAE).  There are images of signs and of shop fronts, and long shots looking down streets.  You can see that Abuthina is more than just an observer, that he was in many cases interacting with his subjects.  There are images from inside Dubai’s Hindu temple, but none from within a mosque or church.  While there are numerous shots of storefronts, there are few taken from within.

Most of the images are not noteworthy in themselves.  You wouldn’t want to hang any one of them on your wall.  But as a group they form a beautiful mosaic depicting a particular time and place.  Among the more outstanding images in the Dubai volume is the portrait of a man with orange hair on pages 60-61, the wrestlers on pages 116-117, the elevated street shot of Baladiya Road pages 134-135, the portrait of a dock worker relaxing at creekside pages 140-141, and the portrait of teamsters with covered faces page 197.

So many photographs of Dubai are made by photographers copying other photographers:  gleaming skyscrapers, light trails on the highways, desert sunsets, or ethnic markers such as camels, falcons, or teapots.  The images in these volumes are of a kind rarely seen but which represent what for many Dubai residents is the everyday visual experience of their city.

A sample gallery of images can be viewed here.

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