Dubai dans les années 1990, photographies d'une ville avant son expansion
Dubai in the 1990s, Photographs of a City Before Its Expansion
Between 1990 and 1992, I photographed Dubai on several occasions while covering motorsport events, Middle East rally championships, and magazine assignments produced on location. These images show a city already committed to a development strategy, although its future was far from obvious to a visiting photographer.
My first visit to Dubai dates back to December 1990. At the time, I was working as a press photographer for DPPI, a press agency specializing in motorsports. One of our clients, the Lebanese magazine Sport Auto, operated a Dubai office called Headline News, managed by Sadri Barrage and Yves Aboukhaled.
On the eve of the First Gulf War, the emirate invited several European journalists to attend the final round of the Middle East Rally Championship and to visit various industrial facilities. The message was clear: economic activity was continuing, particularly around the Jebel Ali Free Zone.
Dubai 1990 - Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Dubai Still Largely Absent from French Media
In the early 1990s, Dubai did not yet occupy the place it holds today in the French imagination. When people referred to the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi was usually better known as the capital of the federation. Dubai was more familiar to the British, many of whom lived or worked in the emirate, but it remained relatively absent from French media coverage.
Upon arriving at the airport, the invited journalists had to wait before receiving their visas. The authorizations were still being validated by local sponsors and sent directly to the airport. Having already travelled extensively in the United States, I had never encountered a procedure like this.
A representative of the organizing committee was waiting for me outside and drove me to the Hyatt Hotel. I was 24 years old, had been working for two years as a press photographer, and it was the first time I had stayed in a hotel of this standard. During that first trip, a lunch was organized in the hotel's revolving restaurant, with an unexpected dress code for a motorsport photographer: wearing a jacket was mandatory.
Dubai 1990, view from the Hyatt Hotel, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Jebel Ali, an Infrastructure Already Strategic
During the visit, journalists were taken to the Port of Jebel Ali. The port, the free zone, and the associated infrastructure already reflected an ambitious economic strategy based on international trade, logistics, and diversification beyond oil revenues. The emirate's leaders sought to attract investment and demonstrate that commercial activity continued despite regional tensions.
Dubai 1990, Port of Jebel Ali and its infrastructure, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
A City Whose Future Was Still Difficult to Read
In 1991, I returned to Dubai for a six-week stay. The management of Headline News hired my services through DPPI to join the media team promoting Saudi driver Mamdouh Khayat in several rounds of the Middle East Rally Championship. Alongside this work, I produced editorial illustrations and several magazine features.
From a helicopter, I photographed the city, Dubai Creek Golf, and several areas that were still only sparsely developed. Today, these aerial photographs may be the most revealing. They show roads, a few towers, open land, sand, and undeveloped plots. The infrastructure was already there, but the overall plan remained difficult for an outside visitor to grasp.
If I had known what Dubai would become thirty years later, I would probably have photographed the city itself more extensively. At the time, the major architectural landmarks that define Dubai today did not yet exist. Large parts of the urban landscape appeared unfinished. For editorial photography, I was more interested in dunes, desert scenery, rally tracks, landscapes, and subjects directly connected to the assignments I had been commissioned to cover.
Dubai 1991, aerial view of the city, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Sheikh Zayed Road Before Today's Density
A few buildings already hinted at the city's ambitions. The World Trade Center Tower and the Al Rostamani Towers stood as isolated landmarks along Sheikh Zayed Road. Today, this avenue is one of Dubai's most recognizable thoroughfares. In 1991, however, it still had a much more open appearance.
These photographs were never intended to create a dramatic before-and-after comparison. They simply document the city at a particular moment in time. It is often the empty spaces surrounding the buildings that make the future transformation easier to understand.
Dubai 1991, World Trade Center Tower on Sheikh Zayed Road, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Dubai 1991, Al Rostamani Towers on Sheikh Zayed Road, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Dubai Creek, Water Taxis and Dhow Boats
Dubai Creek remained one of the city's most active and readable locations. Abras, the traditional water taxis, crossed the creek to avoid bridges that were still far apart. Along the quays, dhows, traditional Gulf trading vessels, loaded and unloaded goods.
This part of the city retained a very tangible commercial and maritime character. The photographs of the Creek tell the story of a Dubai shaped by movement, trade, and everyday work. They complement the more industrial views of Jebel Ali by showing commerce on a different scale.
Dubai 1991, Dubai Creek and dhow boats, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
The Fish Market
I rarely photograph people while travelling or walking through a city. I have always believed that a visitor should remain discreet and adapt to the country they are discovering. Photographing someone simply because they represent an "exotic" or "typical" image has never held much interest for me.
One evening, while returning from an assignment with Sadri Barrage, who was hosting me during my stay, we stopped at the fish market to buy dinner. I had a camera fitted with a wide-angle zoom lens and a flash over my shoulder. I noticed several small sharks displayed on a stall and asked the fishmonger whether I could photograph them. He agreed, then signalled that he wanted to pose with one of the young sharks.
At first, I hesitated. Sadri simply said: "He wants you to photograph him. Make him happy." Other fishmongers then asked to pose as well. Sadri explained that many of them were Indians, Pakistanis, or Bangladeshis who had come to Dubai to work and send money back to their families. They often performed difficult jobs and received little recognition. Being photographed represented a form of acknowledgement for them, even though they would probably never see the pictures.
Dubai 1991, fish market, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
A Slightly Hazy Light
Another memory remains closely associated with these stays: the light. In several photographs, particularly the aerial views and some rally images, the atmosphere appears slightly veiled. Dust or sand suspended in the air, combined with the humidity of the Gulf, created a quality of light quite different from that found in other desert regions.
This light often softened contrasts and altered colours. It is particularly visible in the action photographs taken during the rallies. The sand, the speed of the cars, and the dust-filled air gave the images a very distinctive appearance that, for me, remains inseparable from Dubai in November and December.
Dubai Rally 1990, hazy light in the desert, Photo © Sebastien Desnoulez
Other Assignments Produced During These Stays
These stays in Dubai were not limited to photographs of the city. In 1991, I also produced a report on a camel race in Dubai, featuring very young jockeys, as well as a feature on a falcon hunting training session in the desert.
Other images may become the subject of future articles, including photographs of Robbie Naish performing a water-ski jump while wearing a traditional dishdasha, a traditional rowing race organised by sheikhs in Abu Dhabi, and landscapes photographed around Hatta and the mountains near Oman.
In 1992, I returned to Dubai after covering other rallies in the Middle East, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon. That year, Mamdouh Khayat won the Middle East Rally Championship driving a Lancia Delta Integrale.
Photographing Dubai Before Its Future Was Obvious
Looking at these photographs today, what stands out is not only what can be seen, but also what had not yet appeared. The skyscrapers, the districts that would become famous, and the globally recognised tourist imagery were not yet part of the landscape.
Dubai already possessed infrastructure, a development strategy, and a clear economic vision. Yet from the ground, as well as from the helicopter, it remained difficult to imagine the scale of the transformation that lay ahead. These photographs do not depict a city frozen in the past. They document a moment when Dubai's future was already being prepared, even if it was not yet visible.
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All the photos displayed on this website are copyright protected © Sebastien Desnoulez. No use allowed without written authorization.
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About the author
Sebastien Desnoulez is a photographer, author and image maker based in Paris. His work spans architectural photography, landscape photography and travel photography, with particular attention to composition, lines, light, blur and visual accidents. Trained in photography in the mid-1980s, he covered Formula 1 and reported from around the world before developing a fine art photography practice built around the tension between graphic rigour and visual instability. He also shares his technical experience through practical articles for passionate photographers, drawing on a strong visual culture acquired in both film and digital photography.
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