HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The fleeting colors of spring – red, pink, purple, yellow, white, orange and even blue, if you look carefully – are merely a distraction from the real show. "Green is the color of spring," crooned Van Morrison, and later Kermit the frog. And it is, in fact, "not easy being green," because it is everywhere, overly familiar and dare I say, "boring?"Fortunately, the ascent from Route 90 up to Belvoir, just south of Tiberias, offers a host of interesting views. In late winter, when this photo was taken, the hillsides are a scintillating emerald green, though the colors fade quickly as soon as the rains subside. This image is an abstraction of the larger area. Using a long telephoto lens to cut through some of the haze, I honed in on a small section of the rolling hill that featured odd bumps and gullies that accentuate the contrast in light and textures of the shrubs and grass. I also kept the camera angle level to the horizon in order to convey the steep slope of the hill.
Sometimes we have to fight our way through the familiarity of the visual landscape, through the things we see so frequently we begin not to notice them at all. But as the song says, "green can be cool and friendly, big like an ocean, or important like a mountain." We just have to stop and take it in.
Technical Data: Nikon D700, 70-200mm zoom lens at 135 mm, f8@ 1/800th sec., ISO 400.
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