HOW I GOT THE SHOT: One of the benefits of being a student of photography is that my powers of observation have grown and serve me better all the time, even when I'm not holding a camera. When I made aliya,I reaped another benefit: a pomegranate tree in the front yard of our home. For years, I watched in amazement as the tree moved through its growth cycle, from bare branches to buds, to flowering and ripening of the fruits to the leaves turning yellow and falling to the ground.
This week's photo features an exceptional pomegranate grown in the Judean Mountains, in Efrat, where I live. Following a brief fall rain shower, I stepped outside to inspect the tree, and found this robust specimen, covered with raindrops. Two weeks later, I harvested it, and it adorned our Rosh Hashanah table as one of the simanim, the symbols of blessing for the new year.
The fruit is round, and virtually every camera angle creates this profile view, which works well with the sharp points of the crown. I chose this point of view to take advantage of both the two leaves which drop in front of the upper part of the fruit, and which give depth to the photo, and the background foliage, which contrasts nicely with the red fruit.
We eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah because they symbolize our hope that our good deeds in the new year will be as numerous as the seeds of the fruit. May all of Israel be blessed with a year of peace, prosperity, laughter and love.
TECHNICAL DATA: Nikon D-70, 28-105 zoom at 70mm, f8 at 1/250 sec., ISO 400.
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