Photo of the Week: Aug. 7, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I am often asked to work early in the morning in the Old City of Jerusalem. I enjoy these assignments because I arrive as the day is just awakening and take an opportunity to pray by the Kotel before my clients show up. Parking near the old city is limited so I usually walk from Mount Zion down to the Kotel, taking a different route each time in the hope of discovering something new.

I have written many times how the Old City never lacks for charm and beauty and good photographic subjects abound all year long. On this particular July morning, as soon as I drew near to Zion Gate, a powerful burst of color grabbed my attention. This shot works well because all three of the main color tones work very well together. There is just a tad of early morning light kissing the tops of the olive trees and skimming across the foreground to set the red flowers alight. It’s impossible to tell from this composition, but this section of wall stood between a messy archaeological dig and the parking lot, but with some clear thinking and creative cropping, I was able to unearth my own relic while en route to document another family’s memorable moments.

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TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D300, handheld, manual exposure, center-weighted metering mode, f9 at 1/200th sec., ISO 400. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 zoom at 28 mm. Date: July 23, 2009, 6:45 a.m. Location: Mt. Zion, Jerusalem.

Photos of the Week: July 31, 2013

 

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Sometimes the camera captures what our eyes cannot see. This occurs both when we move in very close, as in macrophotography, and when we slow down the shutter speed to trap movement the eye cannot perceive. When the latter happens, with a little luck, you can snare some magic in a bottle.

In the upper photo, I encountered a family of Ibex out for a late-afternoon stroll in the sandy hills above Ein Avdat. This proud male stood undaunted between my camera and the setting sun, which spilled some flare onto my lens. In this case, what I might normally try to avoid actually enhances the mood of the image. The big buck is nearly in silhouette and the bright background helps outline his form and strength as I portray him mid-stride, accented with some unforeseen sparkle.

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In the lower photo, this friendly egret, while eyeing me cautiously, allowed me to very slowly encroach upon his afternoon feeding along the shoreline at Herzliya Beach. Birds are extremely skittish, so having an extended period to observe and then capture a close-up of a wild bird in its habitat was reason enough to celebrate. Add to that the way the setting sun turned the splashing water into flying sparks and I had the making of a unique image. By slowing the shutter just a bit (to 1/100th sec.), I was able to keep my subject in sharp focus yet also elongate the water droplets, adding some enchantment to the shot. Just another afternoon at the office along the Mediterranean coast.

TECHNICAL DATA: Upper photo - Camera: Nikon D700, handheld, manual exposure, center-weighted metering mode, f20 at 1/500th sec., ISO 400. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 70-200 zoom at 80 mm. Date: Oct. 28, 2012, 4:05 p.m. Location: On the road from Sde Boker to Ein Avdat, Negev Desert.

Lower photo: Camera: Nikon D300, handheld, manual exposure, center-weighted metering mode, f9 at 1/100th sec., ISO 400. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 18-200 zoom at 130mm. Date: July 4, 2011, 6:28 p.m. Location: Herzliya Beach.

Photo of the Week: July 24, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Every now and then I get a little bit whimsical. It’s important to lighten up because my work would be insufferable plodding along on the same serious emotional tenor. And letting loose has the added benefit of opening new passageways for creativity to emerge by tilting my vision ever so slightly that I begin to see anew.

So as the sweat beads rolled down my cheeks on an uncomfortably warm summer afternoon near Kibbutz Gezer, I traipsed through a sunflower field hoping to find something less serious, less typical and heretofore unseen. Sunflowers are heliotropic – they turn toward the sun, making them nearly impossible to photograph from the front with the golden illumination of back lighting I so prefer. Deep in the field of head-high plants, I found this young specimen, still a day or two from flowering. At the time I photographed, it still had its back to the sun, which plays its role perfectly, casting that cherished glow on the leaflets around the flower head as well as on some of the mature yellow petals seen in the background. We know well what a mature, yellow sunflower looks like. But here’s something new, planted with a bit of whimsy on a hot summer day.

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TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D700, tripod mounted, manual exposure, center-weighted metering mode, f6.3 at 1/250th sec., ISO 200. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 zoom at 78mm. Date: June 2, 2011, 4:37 p.m. Location: Opposite Kfar Bin Nun, Central Israel.