THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO DUBAI and one is slowly disappearing.

The problem is nothing happens slowly in Dubai.

The 180 photographs in this book were taken over a period of three years in which the face of the city changed at a frightening pace, acquiring its new appearance; one of cement monoliths, sparkling glass facades, intertwining overpasses and six lane highways.

This, the upside of the city, has grown relentlessly at the expense of an older culture that risks becoming seen as the city's downside.

All along the wharfs of the Creek and in the Souks which are crushed along its borders, people still carry on with a lifestyle that exists since long before the words 'Anno Domini' came into being.

Slowly but surely Dubai's Downside is being sucked into a way of life as alien to its being as the cement jungle surrounding it.

People who for centuries traded with dhows, bringing continents closer together, now risk finding themselves a mere additional attraction for tourists who come to ski and shop in the luxurious shopping malls that sprout like mushrooms throughout the city.

These photographs are a record of a people who bear little relationship to the brave new world surrounding them. They are a tribute to a way of life which deserves to be remembered; not in photograph albums or picture postcards, but with respect for an existence that in no way should be considered the downside of anywhere, but rather as the origin of the process that led to the city that proudly calls itself Dubai.