People are surprised that I spent two nights in Fadi’s bakery in Satwa without taking a single photograph. It wasn’t a plan to be clever. It was the only way to make the pictures I wanted.
The first night is for sweeping
A bakery at 2am is a working room, not a set. Everyone has a job and a route, and a stranger with a camera is in all of their routes. So the first night I carry trays, sweep, and learn where not to stand.
Why it matters
By the third night, nobody looks at the camera. That’s the moment the pictures stop being about me photographing them and start being about the work.
- I bring two small, quiet cameras, never a bag of lights.
- I shoot in the light that’s already there.
- I ask before every portrait, even on the third night.
The time you spend not taking pictures is what makes the pictures.
Why 4am, in Dubai
There’s a second reason here. From May to September the hours before sunrise are the only ones when the city isn’t fighting the heat: the streets are quiet, the bakeries and cafeterias are at full tilt, and the first light after the dawn call to prayer is the softest of the day.
What it costs
Time is the expensive part, and I’m open with clients about it. For Fold, the extra nights were part of the brief. For a brand shoot, it might be a half-hour coffee before we start. Either way, it’s the part I’d cut last.
The Night Bakers story ran in Fold this spring, and two frames are now in the print shop.
