Skateboard Shadows

I’m still working on my photography course project. The theme is “Shadows,” which I’m finding harder to do than I realised. These photos were taken at the newly opened Jerusalem Skate Park, in Liberty Bell Park. I was lucky to find three guys practicing flipping their skate boards. Even when they wiped out, they still cast impressive shadows while they were airborne. I started playing with split-toning and funky angles because shadows can get monotonous–lots of B/W, monochrome, and up/down direction.

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Israel Museum Panoramas

A few more panoramas from my class exercise, taken at the Israel Museum. The first photo shows the two dominant features of the Shrine of the Book, the white dome in the shape of a jar lid (the scrolls were found in covered jars), representing the Sons of Light, and the black slab representing the Sons of Darkness.

The second photo shows the famous “Ahava” (“Love”) sculpture from the reverse side, with the nearby Jerusalem neighbourhoods.

This exhibit was very low, so I wasn’t able to get good shots of the panorama because I didn’t want to lie on the floor in the long hallway leading to the main building. The laser-cut aluminum silhouettes represent technological advances and are an accompaniment to the exhibit, A Brief History of Humankind. If I’d had more time, I would have tried to put one of the more prominent sculptures in the center of the frame, but the hall was quite crowded at the time (another good reason for not lying on the floor).

Maale Adumim Panoramas

These panorama photos were course assignments. The first photo shows the artificial lake at the entrance to Maale Adumim. It was taken from the security road above the artificial lake. It was very dark and for once I was glad to have a heavy tripod with me.

The next photo was taken from the park at the top of Gilgal. If I’d managed to wake up a little earlier, the sky wouldn’t have been quite so blown out. Some day…..

Jerusalem and Mount of Olives, taken from the same security road at the end of Katros.

St. George’s Monastery, Wadi Kelt

St. George’s Monastery, or the Monastery of St. George of Koziba, was founded in the 5th century and largely abandoned after the Persian invasion in the 7th century. The present complex was built in the 19th century. When we arrived, a small group was saying mass at the foot of an outdoor cross on the left side of the photo above (it’s hard to tell that they were Catholics in this photo, but with my 135mm lens I could see two priests and a deacon.

Steep staircase winds down to the bottom of the wadi.

Desert Sunrise near Mitzpeh Yericho

These photos are from a photography workshop that I attended near Mitzpeh Yericho. If you look carefully at the horizon of the first photo, to the right of the sun, you can see the Amman Gate Towers.

Spider just hanging around. We all took turns trying to photograph it. The web was between a rock and a bush, with no place to set up a tripod. This shot was hand-held with a 90mm Tamron macro lens. I don’t use it much and I didn’t think I could manage without a tripod, so this shot surprised me. The spider’s legs are translucent!