Photo of the Week: Nov. 20, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT:This photo is nearly perfect. Why? Because when I look at it, I can feel the air and smell the pungent evergreens and hear the crunch of rock underfoot. Pictures of the special places or people in our lives speak powerfully to us and conjure strong emotions stirred by memories collected over a lifetime.

On the western outskirts of Jerusalem lies one of the city’s natural treasures, Sataf, a spring-fed, verdant hillside whose crowning attraction, for me anyway, is an eight-kilometer loop trail circling Mt. Eitan, which I walk about once a month. Sataf was one of the first parks I discovered when I arrived in Israel 15 years ago. The circuit trail that winds through a heavily forested section of the Judean Mountains features long views, stunning light and large doses of silence. I am acutely reminded of my days residing on the northern California coast near San Francisco. And while I prefer to exercise without a camera, I brought it along just once, because I had seen the light dance across the path and on this jaunt, I shot but one frame, having been to the spot on a previous visit and thus having already done the work except for taking the shot.

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This photo was made about 30 minutes before sunset as sunlight gently graces the path and trees. The soft winter sunlight illuminates the cluster of trees in the background with crystal clarity, just where the eye ends up after travelling the dirt path into the photo’s depth. Another perfect example of how even a common or, dare I say, cliche subject such as a path through the woods can be transformed by recognizing and utilizing the beautiful afternoon light.

TECHNICAL DATA:Camera: Nikon D700, hand held, center-weighted metering mode. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 zoom at 28mm, f/13 at 1/60sec., ISO 400. Date: Oct 20, 2013, 5:05 p.m. Location: Sataf, Judean Mountains near Jerusalem.

Photo of the Week: Nov. 13, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: Sometimes a story is best told with several small details as opposed to a single, wide brush stroke of commentary. Walking through the wilds of Israel at the height of fall, I am amazed by the diversity of trees and plants flashing their autumnal fashion. I lived for many years in New England, arguably the grandest place on Earth for fall color, but it wasn’t until I became a student of photography that I learned to really appreciate this season. Now, fall is ever more vibrant and alive because I see it so much better. Learning the language of photography taught me to see at all times, whether I have a camera in hand or not.

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I encourage my students to start a collection – of anything that interests them – so that as it grows, their creativity will also grow alongside it. It seemed impossible to share just a single image from my substantial collection of fall close ups, So here are four gems I found in three different corners of the country, all shot with a close-up lens:
Upper left: A fig leaf growing in the Galilee near Rosh Pina, about to take leave of its branch.
Upper right: A pear leaf dangles from a branch in the Judean Mountains of Gush Etzion.
Lower right: A grape leaf seemingly on fire in a vineyard in the Ela Valley near Beit Shemesh.
Lower left: A pair of plum leaves in an orchard on the Golan.

It takes focus and concentration to locate the best subjects amongst thousands of candidates and yet, it is a skill easily accessed and frequently employed in the most common places, such as the vegetable bin at your local supermarket. The difference, however, is that out in nature, I immerse myself in the environment (cell phone off is rule no. 1), clear my mind and hone my vision to isolate those beauties destined to become my next photograph (or salad, as the case may be). I’ll leave it up to you to decide which one you like best!

Photo of the Week: Oct. 30, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I am continually trying to push myself creatively but it gets progressively more difficult to find new and satisfying ways to interpret subjects I have already photographed. I have to confess I am not sure where I got the idea for this week’s photograph other than from the accumulated wisdom of the first 100,000 or so pictures I have taken outdoors. I did know that when I decided to shove my head and camera into the inner mass of leaves of branches of a plum tree radiating fall colors that I would have to do it more than once. And I am fairly certain I will try it again, despite the scratches and dirt in my ear.

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For photographers just getting started, it is important to understand there are two basic elements to consider in every photograph: depth and movement. Every DSLR and many simple cameras offer shooting options which give priority to the aperture or shutter speed, which control these variables. So when I bent my cheek around a rotting leaf, I knew I wanted the largest aperture possible to keep depth to an absolute minimum.

Here, though, instead of removing objects that fall way out of focus, I allowed them to remain in the frame and throw abstractions of light and color around my subject, which is just a single leaf. I made at least a dozen attempts on two outings with five different trees. I had to keep shooting because my eyes – and yours as well – don’t see this way. Our two eyes (compared with the camera’s single lens) allow substantial depth perception so there was no way for me to determine what might be the result of this experiment by simply eyeing the subject. I had to see it in camera.

This shot worked the best, I think, because I managed to fill the entire frame around the subject and find a tree awash with colors. No more tree hugging for me; from now on I dive head first into the crown.

TECHNICAL DATA:Camera: Nikon D700, hand held, center-weighted metering mode. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 135DC prime lens, f/2 at 1/1,250 sec., ISO 200. Date: Oct 17, 2013, 4:33 p.m. Location: Judean Mountains, Gush Etzion.

Photos of the Week: Oct. 23, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I apologize to anyone who glanced at these photos and thought maybe I had hopped hemispheres, landing in early spring on the other side of the globe. No, these photos were all taken this week at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, where to my surprise and delight, fall is a-flowering.

The photo on the left, a water lily, caught my eye because of the subtle reflection and my ability to frame the shot with its red, submerged stem and the green lily pads lit by sunlight at the top of the photo. The big pond in the gardens and its exotic lily pad collection is the first thing to greet visitors. Most of the flowers are quite a distance from the pond’s edge and tough to photograph, but I found this specimen growing in a water-filled crate in a work area in a far corner of the park at the conclusion of a workshop. Thanks to one of the participants, who also volunteers at the gardens, a few of my workshop stragglers were able to see some of the behind-the-scenes work of the botanists and plant enthusiasts who keep the gardens healthy.

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The same aforementioned volunteer also led us to a spot where we photographed the yellow Sternbergia Clusiana, center, nestled amid brown and dry fallen leaves. I demonstrated my belly-flop compositional technique for this shot, lying on the ground to get this profile view.
The image on the right shows a water hyacinth, also located in a water-filled crate not far from the lily. I was able to get within a few inches of the plant and, using a macro lens, capture its textured petals and intricate colors from just a few inches away. The Botanical Gardens is well worth a visit any time of the year for those who want to bone up on their Latin plant names or escape the urban jungle for more pastoral pastures.

TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D700, hand held, center-weighted metering mode. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 macro zoom, f5 at 105 mm, ISO 400 for all three photos. Date: Oct 21, 2013. Location: Jerusalem Botanical Gardens.

Photo of the Week: Oct. 16, 2013

HOW I GOT THE SHOT: I now spend about a third of my professional time teaching − in classes, workshops and privately − with a growing population of camera users hungry to improve their skills. I have discovered that the most important gift I can pass on to my students is the ability to see better. It not only makes one a better photographer, but also increases one’s appreciation of the visual world no matter where or how one is engaged with it. With photography, seeing better often means being able to see beyond what is right in front of you. This requires an ability to see by exclusion, to remove things that are in plain sight and leave behind only a mental image of the final photograph.

No place offers quite the visual challenge as a chaotic, noisy, crowded market. The myriad, multi-sensual-distractions make honing in with one sense – sight – much more difficult than on a quiet hilltop at dawn. I love the spice stalls in Machane Yehuda, in part because they never bore my camera but I also enjoy their aroma and the thought of the exotic and tasty dishes the spices embellish. In its final airing, this photo seems simple and easy to shoot. In order to perfect the composition, however, I had to rise on my tiptoes to gain a slightly elevated perspective that moved the handle of the left scooper below the upper rim of the top bowl so that the two elements did not overlap. A small but hugely important difference, made possible only by seeing in my mind’s eye how it should look and then finding a way to make it so.

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TECHNICAL DATA: Camera: Nikon D300, hand held, center-weighted metering mode, f6.3 at 1/160th sec., ISO 800. Raw file converted to Jpeg. Lens: Nikon 28-105 macro zoom at 46 mm. Date: July 29, 2013 10:26 a.m. Location: Machane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem.