Aerial and drone photography in Jeddah. The largest body of work here is retail: Mall of Arabia, Jeddah Park and Yasmin Mall were each covered ground and aerial for Cenomi, as part of a programme running to thirty-two shooting days across the Kingdom.
The Cenomi Programme
Jeddah is where most of the Cenomi retail work sits. Mall of Arabia, Jeddah Park and Yasmin Mall were each shot ground and aerial in the same visit, with Haifa Mall and Salam Mall covered alongside them.
Doing it as one commission is the reason it works. Retail photography usually splits: a drone operator delivers the site overview, a separate photographer delivers the interiors, and the two sets never look like the same building. Covering both means the aerial establishing frame and the shopfront detail are graded together and read as one body of work.
Retail From the Air Is About the Site
On a mall the subject is rarely the architecture. It is the site: how the approach roads feed it, how the parking resolves, where the entrances actually are, and how big the whole thing is against what surrounds it. None of that is visible from the ground and all of it is what a leasing or asset team needs.
The usable window is narrow. The frame that works is the one where the signage and the interior lighting have come on but the car park and the roads are still legible, which is roughly twenty minutes at dusk. Shooting several malls in a trip means each of those windows is scheduled rather than hoped for.
Clearance and the Red Sea Coast
Saudi aerial operations require GACA clearance, and Jeddah adds coastal and airport proximity to the usual constraints. Permissions are arranged in advance as part of the commission.
Work along the coast extends beyond the city: Al Wajh, further up the Red Sea shore, was covered as a separate commission. Inland, Riyadh carries the KAFD aerials that took 1st Place in Cityscapes at the International Photography Awards 2025, and Dammam carries the Eastern Province half of the Cenomi work.
