Photo of the Week: Jan. 20, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: One of the inherent dangers of being a photographer is that while driving, I often spend more time admiring the landscape than the road. This orchard caught my eye one day while driving up the road from Beit Shemesh to Gush Etzion and I tracked down the exact spot a few days later. The image evolved through several efforts to bring the three main elements - the grassy foreground, the pink blossoms, and the blue mountains and sky - into proper balance and perspective. Typically, my mobility was limited by the contours of the surrounding landscape. I wanted to maintain a slight elevation above the foreground to give the photo better depth, but there wasn't much room to maneuver without losing height. The best angle I could find still left the line of pink trees somewhat thinner and less dominant in the photo than what I could see as I walked around the orchard. In the end, the bold, complementary colors combine with the movement of the photo from lower right to upper left corner to pull the photo together into a successful composition.

Photo of the Week: Jan 13, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Snowstorms in Israel are just rare enough to make each one a minor celebration. With the roads closed, my shooting was limited to what lay outside my front door. Fortunately, that's never a drawback, as the scenic Judean hills are a willing subject all year long. Once again, timing played a critical role in capturing the clouds in beautiful formation as the tail end of the storm passed over my home. An hour later the clouds were gone and much of the snow melted as soon as the sun rose high enough to warm the valley. Because of the dramatic sky, I chose a vertical composition, which allows for more than half the frame to be filled with rolling clouds that seem to still be in motion. Snow is a tricky subject, as many amateur photographers have discovered. The immense whiteness of a snow scene can fool your camera into underexposing the image because the automatic metering system doesn't know you really want the subject to remain white. The result is muddy, gray, and dull looking images. To overcome this problem, set your exposure compensation option - a feature I've seen on just about every point and shoot digital camera - to +1.5 or even +2. Better yet, bracket your shots, that is shoot a whole bunch of photos at different settings. You'll not only learn how to use this feature, but you're guaranteed to hit one of the shots spot on!

Photo of the Week: Jan 6, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The proliferation of photographs in our daily lives has made it more difficult to produce new pictures that strike the imagination. This photo has two things going for it which energize the subject. The first is the unusual aerial perspective. Most of the time we view the world from about 5 feet off the ground. Any time you can change that perspective, you add allure to your subject, no matter how mundane, simply by presenting it from an unfamiliar point of view. Secondly, the highly selective cropping maximizes the tension created by the different shapes and colors. By truncating the various groupings of trees in mid-section, the cropping also creates the impression that the orchard is of almost infinite size, because the mind is able to extend the patterns beyond the borders of the photo.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 30, 2007

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The desert has its own unique beauty as well as a host of photographic challenges to overcome. These include dust, heat, inaccessibility and extremely contrasty light from the first moments of morning until late afternoon. This photo, taken just after sunrise, is further evidence that the golden hours always bear fruit and that rising before dawn has its rewards. A variety of textures give feeling to this image while a gentle, curving line provides depth. Using a strong foreground element, such as these colorful rocks, is essential to drawing the viewer into the photo and giving the landscape both dimension and impact.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 23, 2007

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: When I have to confront the chaos of the dance floor during a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah, I sometimes apply a little technical trickery to capture an interesting shot. Creating the effect seen here requires a camera which allows manual setting of two important options. The first is shutter speed, which must be slowed down to at least 1/30 second or slower to create the kind of blurring of movement and trails seen in this photo. Here, the shutter speed was 1/5 sec. The second and more important feature is an option which allows the flash to fire at either the beginning or the end of the exposure. Most of the time the flash fires as soon as the shutter is fully open, but because the speed at which the flash fires should always be faster than the shutter, you can also set the flash to pop at the last possible moment when the shutter is fully open. This is called rear curtain sync. In this mode, the shutter will remain open for an instant, recording the subject and movement with the available room light. When the flash eventually fires, it freezes the action in a burst of light. The end result is really two pictures, the pre-flash photo which records everything the camera sees up to the moment the flash goes off, and a second, sharper, well-lit image created by the flash.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 16, 2007

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Jerusalem of Gold gets its name from the beautiful glow of golden light cast by the setting sun on the walls of the old city. Until I shot this picture, I wouldn't have considered trying to capture those "golden moments" after the sun had set. In this photo, however, the sun has already dipped below the horizon, but the last moments of daylight combine with artificial light to create an unusual view of this grand subject. At this time of day, because the light is changing so rapidly, a photograph is able to preserve a moment of beauty that the eye can barely perceive, and even if it does, it is lost almost as quickly as it is discovered. The most evocative photos often emerge from these transitional times, such as the clearing of a storm, or the morning and evening twilight.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 9, 2007

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Luck often plays a part in getting a good photograph, but planning, preparation and alertness increase your chance of getting lucky. I shot this photo many years ago and despite numerous technical faults, its power is immense. Although absorbed in the unique energy of this holy spot on my first visit to Israel, I noticed the two men approaching each other from opposite ends of the plaza. I reacted quickly by positioning myself midway between them. Elderly men with canes don't move very fast, but I still had only enough time to lift the camera and shoot. This photograph is a testament to the fact that images don't need to be perfect to convey strong sentiments. I never could have envisioned this shot when I woke up that morning, but I did see it coming, albeit only seconds before I snapped it. Sometimes, seconds are all you have. Unless, of course, you're also lucky.