Ciel Dubai Marina Photographed by SARAB | Commissioned by NORR's Lead Architect

Written By Ahmad Alnaji

Yahya Jan, President of NORR Engineering and lead architect of Ciel Dubai Marina, commissioned SARAB Art Production to photograph the completed tower. At 377 metres, Ciel is the tallest hotel in the world. Yahya Jan came to SARAB, a Dubai fine art architectural photography studio led by Ahmad Alnaji, because he trusted its art personally. The brief was to make an artistic record of the tower without changing anything about what he had designed, and the collection turned out strong enough to carry its own publication. Dezeen asked to run the photographs exclusively and published the first images of the finished tower under the headline "Photos reveal world's tallest hotel in Dubai".

What the architect asked for is honest fine art architectural photography.

Yahya Jan wanted the photographs to show more than a finished hotel. He wanted the architecture visible: the proportions, the decisions, the details that disappear when a project of this scale is only ever seen as part of a skyline. He had followed SARAB's work for a while, and what he wanted was exactly what the studio already does, which is museum-grade fine art photography that represents the truth of the architecture.

Representing a project the way its architect intended starts with asking them. On Ciel that meant talking to Yahya Jan about what he had designed and why, which decisions mattered most to him, and what he wanted people to understand about the tower. From there the work becomes a series rather than a set of hero frames. Exteriors from the distances the tower is actually read at, interiors, and the details that carry the design and disappear from far away. Each image has its own job, and together they tell the story of the project. Ahmad Alnaji described the work to Dezeen simply: the photographs should be artistic without deceiving the viewer about the true design and elements of Ciel. That balance is what SARAB works in, where the photograph carries its own point of view while the architecture remains what the architect intended. The two are usually treated as opposites, and holding both at once is difficult enough that few studios take it on.

Ciel on Dezeen and SARAB’s Architectural Publication Reach

The Dezeen article opens by naming Ahmad Alnaji and closes with the line "The photography is by Ahmad Alnaji." For an architecture publication, leading on the photographer rather than the architecture is unusual, and for an architect or a developer it matters a lot. A completed project can be significant enough to deserve international attention and still not travel, because a publication needs a set of images strong enough to build a page around. Good architectural photography gives an editor more to work with: a wide frame establishes the tower, another explains an architectural decision, details slow the story down, and interiors take a reader somewhere the skyline frame cannot reach.

Ciel is not the first SARAB architectural photography commission to be publsihed on global publications. In 2026 SARAB photographed Wasl Tower, commissioned by UNStudio, Wasl Group and Mandarin Oriental. Those photographs have since been published by Architectural Record, ArchDaily, Designboom, the RIBA Journal, Parametric Architecture, Archinect, Archilovers, Archello, The Plan in Italy, Arquitectura Viva in Spain, and Architektura i Biznes in Poland. More than eleven publications across five countries, from one commission. The reach matters because the value of a strong set does not stop at delivery, and the same images keep representing the architecture in the press, in awards submissions, in presentations, and wherever the project comes up later.

What happens before a SARAB architectural photography shoot

Ciel followed the way SARAB starts every commission. Ahmad Alnaji studied architecture for three years before moving into photography full time, and the work begins with the people who designed the project rather than with a shot list: what were they trying to achieve, which parts carry the idea, which decisions took the longest to resolve. That conversation decides what gets photographed and from where. The exteriors are made at the distances the project is genuinely seen from, the interiors take a viewer into spaces a skyline frame cannot reach, and the details hold the design decisions that vanish beyond a certain distance. Each is made in the light that serves it, from daylight through sunset into night. What comes back is one body of work rather than a set of unrelated frames, which is what lets the same photographs serve international press, stand as a collection, and work as prints.

Ciel Dubai Marina

Ciel Dubai Marina rises 377 metres across 82 storeys, making it the tallest hotel in the world and surpassing Dubai's 356-metre Gevora Hotel. Designed by NORR, the tower narrows toward both its top and its base and is wrapped in curved glass. Its most recognisable feature is the opening through the upper portion. Inside, a 300-metre atrium rises through the tower in stacked sky gardens and naturally ventilated terraces. Ciel opened in November 2025 with 1,004 rooms under IHG's Vignette Collection. For a tower designed to be read from across Dubai Marina, the closer views carry as much as the wide ones.

Commissioning SARAB

SARAB Art Production is led by Ahmad Alnaji and works across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with the photographs travelling much further. Saudi Aramco brought SARAB to Ithra. UNStudio, Wasl Group and Mandarin Oriental brought it to Wasl Tower. Qatar Tourism brought it to Qatar's landmarks. Yahya Jan brought it to Ciel. Each of those started the same way, with someone who had seen the work and wanted it for a project they cared about.

To commission SARAB, write to info@sarab.art

With thanks to Amy Peacock at Dezeen.

Read the article: Photos reveal world's tallest hotel in Dubai

See the full Ciel Dubai Marina collection.

Ahmad Alnaji

Ahmad Alnaji is a fine art architectural photographer based in Dubai and the founder of SARAB Art Production, a studio that specializes in fine art photography of landmark architecture across the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. He studied architecture for three years before moving into photography, and he reads a building the way its architect designed it, which is why architecture firms tend to recognize their own thinking in his images. He prefers the title of artist over photographer.

His work treats a building as a subject worth a story rather than a record of how it looks, bringing fine art to cityscape, architecture, and hospitality photography through visual storytelling. SARAB created the fine art images of the Museum of the Future that the museum and the UAE Government Media Office used in official promotion of the building, photographed Wasl Tower by UNStudio inside and out, One Za'abeel by Nikken Sekkei, and Zayed National Museum by Foster + Partners, and was commissioned by Qatar Tourism to photograph Qatar's landmarks. Clients include Foster + Partners, UNStudio, Killa Design, Saudi Aramco, Dubai Tourism, and Qatar Tourism.

https://www.sarab.art
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