Photo of the Week: Jan. 6, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: For decades, Jews outside of Israel have been contributing to the Jewish National Fund's tree-planting programs. Over the last century, according to the JNF, Israelis have planted some 185 million trees, creating 280 new forests in places as diverse as the desert and sharply-sloped mountainsides. As a child, I remember – like millions of others – putting coins into the blue and white JNF collection boxes. What I didn't understand until I came to Israel was that almost all of Israel's native forests were denuded by successive conquerors up through the Ottoman Turks, who clear cut whatever forest remained to provide timber for the trans-Arabian railroad. At the beginning of the 20th century, the country was 97% bare.


Today, the country abounds with vast and healthy forests of evergreens, such as those seen in this photo, taken in the Birya Forest near Tzfat. I took this shot spontaneously at the end of the day when I had already packed up my gear and clocked out. Driving back to my evening's accommodations, I caught sight of the last rays of sunlight lighting up this grove of mixed fir trees, each one seemingly a different tone of green. I pulled over, grabbed my 70-200 zoom and my tripod and fired off a few shots quickly before the interesting light faded. Using the "File Info" feature in Photoshop, I can easily recall data for the shot, including focal length (95mm), shutter speed (1/80 sec.), f-stop (7.1), ISO (200), shooting mode (manual) and whether or not a flash was fired. There are other ways of retrieving this information besides Photoshop and data is available from any digital camera. Reviewing camera settings is a great way to discover why a particular photo succeeds or fails. By comparing a series of similar shots made with different settings, you can begin to decipher the numerous abstruse features found on today's digital cameras and make the right choices when the next photo op arises.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 30, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The Talmud teaches that “Ten measures of beauty descended on the world — nine were taken by Jerusalem, one by the rest of the world. There is no beauty like the beauty of Jerusalem.” The immeasurable beauty of Jerusalem can be witnessed on any day of the year. This photograph, however, illustrates the guiding principle which separates the casual photographer from the serious devotee. It's what I call "carpe photos," or "seize the light," if you'll forgive me for mixing the Latin and Greek.

This view of the old city of Jerusalem is photographed day after day by thousands of tourists who flock to the Mount of Olives. I had the good fortune to be passing through this section of the city on a spectacular winter morning when the air was crystal clear following a day a rain. I was equally lucky to have time to take the half-hour detour required to get in position to take this shot. It was well worth the time as cloud shows such as this are rare enough to warrant seizing the opportunity when it arrives.

No complex, technical thinking was required to make this photograph. The mid-morning light is fairly even across the frame, which allowed both the sky and land to remain properly exposed for detail in the highlights using the camera's automatic metering system. Compositionally, I chose to give a slight emphasis to the sky so that the two halves of the photograph are not equal in size. To me, the beauty of this scene is inherent in the subject. Capturing it in a photo is merely a question of making the effort.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 22, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Part of the process of previsualization – envisioning an image in your mind before you shoot it – includes giving thought to how that image might be used later on. For example, if an image is being used to illustrate a magazine article, I would give priority to shooting a vertical composition to allow for the option of placing it full frame on the publication's cover. More important, however, is allowing some dead space in the image where text can be placed. With that in mind, I'll often shoot an image wider than necessary, knowing I can always crop out unneeded content. This week's photo works perfectly in that respect. I chose it because it differs from the most common Chanukah pictures, which show the menorah lit with all nine candles. Additionally, a few lucky coincidences help make this photo exceptional. I like the way the candles stand at odd angles to each other and the flames bend in the breeze. There is a pleasant lack of perfection, emphasized by the empty holder next to the shamash, that makes the image feel natural, not staged. I also like the background, which is blurred but mimics the foreground with specks of firelight from several other menorahs. And I like the way the light drifts to shadow as your eye moves down the candles and toward the base of the menorah. Combined with the dark border along the top, which provides a perfect spot to overlay a holiday greeting, the dark area along the bottom gives prominence to the photo's main subject.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 16, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The little curl at the top of the tree – and how perfectly it rolls over to the right and how impeccably it echoes the roundness of the sun – is the reason I took this photograph. Beautiful sunsets are frequent in the Judean mountains near my home and I've taken enough satisfying shots to be able to enjoy them without my camera. This photo was the culmination of a short hike around the community of Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. I don't think I would have even noticed the trees had I not paused to look up at the sky, just to see if perhaps something interesting were about to unfold. As soon as I did, I spotted the sun dipping into the gap between the two silhouetted trees. I adjusted my angle of view slightly and waited until the sun dropped to the midpoint of the space. Because the sky is almost entirely without clouds, the dark trees need to occupy some of the empty space at the top of the photo to provide balances to the composition. All photographs, especially those shot in nature, preserve fleeting moments in time. A few months later I returned to this spot and both the tree, and its cute little curl, were gone.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 9, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: The last time I posted a photo of food, a shot of mouth-watering red grapes ready for harvest, a number of people wrote to me that they wanted to grab one and take a bite! I hadn't even sampled them myself while out in the field, but I can attest to my supreme enjoyment of two of the challot featured in this week's picture. This is a photo I had tried on several occasions to capture, but I never managed to find the right bakery displaying its loaves in a manner that allows so many to be photographed in one frame. It helped that they were outside on a sidewalk, situated under an overhang which blocked any direct light, thus creating very soft, diffused and near-perfect lighting for this shot. In order to take the picture, I had to contend with two obstacles. Most difficult were the many shoppers passing through the market and between the subject and my camera on a busy Friday morning. Most dangerous were the cars moving along the street where I stood in order to get back far enough to include the entire bread rack in the frame. And I had to wait for an opportunity when neither cars nor shoppers interfered. I cropped the image to remove the sides of the metal cart holding the loaves, which I thought looked unappealing, and to create the impression that the challot are infinitely numerous. By filing the idea for this image in the back of my mind, it became readily accessible the moment opportunity arose. Taking them home was as easy as releasing the shutter and 20 shekels from my pocket. The only thing missing is the delightful aroma.

Photo of the Week: Dec. 2, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I've probably burned a barrel of oil unsuccessfully chasing after rainbows during the fleeting moments between sun and storm. In this week's photo I did find a rainbow of sorts, on a scintillating fall morning when not a single drop of rain fell from the sky. Imagine for an instant a rolling hillside speckled with white rocks, neatly planted rows of fruit trees, a winding, dirt road, a distant cow shed and an electrical tower. Amid this collage of nature and industry, between the dusty road and the rusted carcass of a bus, lay a sea of colorful leaves that arced through my viewfinder like a rainbow bending its beauty across the horizon. I found a cluster of rocks which provided enough elevation to shoot down on the mass of leafy color and blot out the unsightly surroundings. A zoom lens allowed me to isolate my target and trim the strips of color into nearly equal parts.
This photo resembles a work of pointillism. The great impressionist masters understood that the interplay between color and light intricately represented on canvas brings the viewer's eye to a point of appreciation which is rarely matched, even by the physical world. Digital camera sensors and some modern printing presses, reproduce this technique using red, blue and green pixels in order to build the proper color relationships as seen by the human eye. At the right time and place, this trio of visual workhorses blend to reveal the ever-elusive pot of gold.

Photo of the Week: Nov. 25, 2008

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: One of the joys of teaching photography is giving a group of students the same assignment and afterward discussing their vastly different interpretations of the same subject. Invariably, it’s a learning experience for everyone present, including the teacher. I played that game with myself earlier this month while racing against the setting sun to find a viewpoint that captured the radiance of fall in northern Israel. This week's photo depicts the same valley shown in last week's photo, situated just south of Metula along Israel's northern border. Taken a few minutes earlier and looking to the south as opposed to the west and into the sun, it offers an entirely different perspective on this idyllic setting.
This is a more complex photo which defies a brief description. I had to crop this image very carefully to remove some ugly farm machinery and retain only the natural features of the land within the frame. Precise cropping can elevate an average photo to something exceptional, so I often experiment with different crops until settling on a final composition. In cropping this photo, I began by slicing off a small section of the olive trees from the bottom edge, which improved the photo in three ways. First, it allowed the orange plum leaves to flow more prominently into the frame by entering through the lower left corner and continuing up to the center, following the action of the photo. Secondly, a darker clump of olive trees fell into the right hand corner. Having a slightly darker area along the photo's edge keeps the viewer's eyes within the photo. Finally, trimming the clump of olive trees makes them about the same size as the photo's two other prominent features. The lack of a clear center of interest pits these equally-sized sections against each other in a tense competition to hold the viewer's eye. Likewise, the photo's odd assortment of colors fights with each other for prominence rather than blending harmoniously. Most of the time I build the composition around the main point of interest, but in this case, the clash of color and content adds tension and imbalance while serving to enliven the overall picture.