Baz:

I have another suggestion for you. I remember reading a magazine entitled
"Middle East Photography" a couple of times. It is published out of Dubai,
if I remember correctly. My wife and I both felt the content was a bit of
fluff, but I seem to recall a lot of ads for Dubai photographic services. It
might be worth picking up the magazine if you can just for these contacts. I
used to find the magazine in Abu Dhabi in the Spinney's, All Prints, and the
Hallmark store, so you should see it in one of the better magazine stores.

I hope you find a service in Dubai you are happy with. I cursed a few places
after getting back poorly developed slides or terrible mounting. (Not the
lab that I recommended to you.) My wife and I also noted that many of the 1
hour labs in Abu Dhabi had a tendency to overexpose prints, rendering skin
tones lighter and washing out some details. My wife did some networking at
the Abu Dhabi Ladies group and got a few recommendations for one particular
little hole-in-the-wall store that got the exposure right and was quite
reliable.

Lots of luck with your search.

Frank

Hi Baz,

I am a photographer based in Dubai, i have lived here for 15 years. ME
Photography magazine is no longer being published. The magazine was full of
fluff (i know, i worked with them) and was produced locally by the same
people who publish Time Out Dubai, Viva and lots of business titles (
www.itp.com).

Getting any film developed in Dubai is a gamble. The professional Kodak lab
(Kodak UCF) uses old chemicals and cheap paper for prints while Prolab,
another 'professional' lab have very limited sizes for prints and i have
frequently gotten back scratched and crappy negatives. Actually, between the
two i would use Kodak UCF- i have not used prolab in many years.

For Digital the best lab in Dubai is Sanable Studios. The print on Kodak
Endura paper (which kodak does not use), they can print to any size and will
fix mistakes quickly. They are used by many advertising agencies to print
their large-scale media.

For film, depending on what you want, you can buy film from:

Salam Studios (Wafi Centre)- Ilford (they also sell Leica, studio lights,
bags, tripods)
Grand Stores (Bur Juman Centre, Emirates Towers) - Fuji (they also develop
fuji there, and is the place to buy Nikon equipment)
Kodak UCF (Karama, near Sana Fashions) - Kodak MF film
National Stores (downtown Bur-Dubai, down from the Museum after some big
banks- HSBC i think)- they sell Canon equipment, i am not sure what film they
have though.

If i can offer you any further advice-  send me an email flealee@gmail.com

Kathy