My new old panorma

While organizing my image archive i bumped into a batch of images which looked like parts of a panorama. I totally forgot i took them.
It was about a year and a half ago when i took them. At that time there was a fire raging next to my parents house. It came so close that at some point my parents had to pack their stuff and get ready to leave. Luckily after 3 days the fireman manged to control and extinguish the fire, about 150 meters from the house. The next day i took

Abstract photography

All along my journey in the world of photography i love to look for the abstract around us. To search for colors, shapes, lines, textures and take them out of their context. The way i see it, its  taking control of your own environment, looking for borders around you and fitting them into the frame. Usually the kind of people attracted to this kind of art are control freaks, or totally the opposite i call them the "freestyle" photographers. As i know my self a bit i would consider myself rather from the first group.  

Macro photography

I love macro photography. It opens the door to a beautiful new world. You have to have some patience and sometimes its frustrating but i find that a good macro shot is worth the effort. For those who want to develop their lighting techniques its a very good practice, which later on will be very useful on bigger scenes.
My first macro shots where taken in natural light its possible and you can get very nice images that way, although your a bit limited depending only on the sunlight. I have no time right now to go into details about how it all works maybe later on i will write a post about the basics of macro photography.

Meanwhile i want to share with you the result of my latest macro shoot. The idea  to this image came up just because i found a few snails outside in the garden.  I thought it could be nice to experiment with them a bit and its never a bad idea to add another image to my ever growing  collection.

Woodpecker from my new hide

A woodpecker couple is nesting on the tree outside in our garden. The idea of taking some pictures of them past my mind already a few times. I have even tried it  before but until today with no successes.
The woodpecker is a really suspicious, shy and hyperactive "model" so its a bit frustrating to get a decent shot of it. Once your spotted it wouldn't come near, especially if you are holding one of this dangerous looking tele lenses.

Around this time of the year (beginning to middle of April)  its breeding season begins, so i know there will be a lot of movement around their nesting hole. This fact brought me to the decision its a good time to bring my plan into action.
In front of the nesting hole there is a small shad. I only had to take out all the junk, clean it a bit, hang a sheet where the door used to be and cut out a small hole, where i could peep out with the lens. As i finished to cut out the hole i tested it out, to be sure that its big enough and at the right angle. While testing the woodpecker arrived looked quickly around and dived in to its hole. I was so happy, everything is ready and it doesn't realize i'm sitting 4 meters from its nest. It was getting dark so there was no reason to stay in my hide anymore.

My plan for the next day was to wake up before sunrise,

The old couple

Yesterday i went to an event on the beach where i wanted to take some pictures. It was a bit lifeless, so i started wandering around and enjoyed the beauty of the beach. At some point i saw this two trees. They where standing there next to each other like an old a couple, while one is watching its loved one going to the next world... that was a sad moment.

I wasn't in such a good mood that day.

I have already noticed before that in every image we take there is emotion. Its very hard or even impossible to separate our emotion from the image we take, unless you are able to ignore it. In my case it doesn't work. If i would ignore it i wouldn't be able to photograph...

The Ringed neck Parakeet

Not like every morning, today the first being i encountered wasn't a human being. it was an animal. I just opened the door to go brush my teeth, my sink an toothbrush are outside under the open sky, and there outside on the tree was sitting a beautiful parrot. it was a Ring-necked Parakeet. The first thing i did was run back as slowly as i can into my room, get the camera, connect my tele lens, run back again as slowly as i can and finally started taking pictures. The bird was very calm. I got so close to it that i past the lens minimum focusing distance (mfd). Usually the mfd of a tele isn't that close. In my case its around 3 meters but birds tend to get scared from the "white canon", when it's pointing their direction. The parrot was modeling for 10-15 minutes and then just flew back into the mountains. What a beautiful way to start a day, even better than coffee...

Photography is magic

I decided to bring my blog back to life. It started when 3 years ago in the village where i used to live, a few beautiful old pine trees got cut down, while a heron colony was nesting and growing their new generation of chicks. It was a disaster. Dozens of chicks where killed from the fall, the tractors that where just smashing them under their wheels and starvation. We managed to save some but a lot of them got killed by the stupidity of human kind, which is scared of the uncontrollable.
At the time i started the blog i wrote in Hebrew. The reason was because i wanted to open the eyes of the village council and village residents and make them understand that that's not the way to handle and behave towards nature and its inhabitants. There are much better ways to solve such a problem/situation. This story got to the local news and after this affair, i think that it wont happen again. For the past 3 years nobody touched the grove again and i hope that also no one will do.
This blog is going to be about photography. I'm photographing already for 4 years, and don't have any clear direction in the field. Until now i just take pictures out of the pure fun of it. Everybody, or at least most of the professional photographers i talked to told me that the most important thing a photographer should decide is what kind of photography niche you want to professionalize in . Unfortunately, or maybe not, i still didn't decide and enjoy photography as it is. Who knows maybe ill manage get some where without making that decision.