The temple by the sea

Back to Santa Monica pier. There seem to be endless points of view for photographing it. The more I come to this place, the more it allows me to see it.

Perhaps experience it would be a better word for this.

Last time, a few months ago when I was here I took a photo of the underside of the pier. It was not perfect, the camera moved a bit, so I thought I would try again this time.

Armed with my camera and my new tripod, came to the pier an hour before sunset and started photographing on the beach, getting under the pier when the sun was still up in the sky, but not for long. This time I was not alone there, a man was taking pictures of a young girl, some girls passing from one side to the other.

I was just sitting there, camera focused on the view, when I saw that moving the camera just a tiny bit - revealed the light streaming in. Turning a place which is dark and foreboding into the center hall of a temple. Then, as a perfect touch, a little boy came and started playing in the sand. click. and another. and another.

The closest I have ever been to understanding how the Temple in Jerusalem must have looked like. 

My temple by the sea.

The temple by the sea

The beauty of imperfection

The trip to Japan starts moving from dream stage to reality. Tickets are booked, time to take the first steps into this new world. 

Starting to dive into the wabi sabi concept, trying to grasp it by reading (Leonard Koren book for the 2nd time) and photographing. If I were at my studio now, I would probably try to understand it through metal work as well. 

The beauty of age, of things impermanent and imperfect.

Sounds pretty perfect to me.

Spread your wings

Summarizing my 2014 year in one picture.

In constant motion, looking for my voice. Discovering new lands, while enjoying the ones I have.

Simplifying. Looking for the essence. Looking beyond the colors.

Looking forward to the next landing place, knowing it will be one more step in the journey.

Wishing myself and all my loved ones to spread their wings wide and find new worlds in 2015. 

Liquid silk

Back to Santa Monica. The joy of jet-leg - waking up at 04:15 in the morning, reading, thinking, watching the light. 

At 6:30 it's still dark, at 07:00 light is on. Now I know when I need to go for some morning shooting. Today, I tell myself, today it's just for fun.

Grabbing the camera, selecting 2 lenses and off to the pier. On the way, I already see the light. it has a luminescent, whipped cream like texture. When i get to the pier, I am almost running. I never shot from the pier towards the east in the morning.

Looking for the exact angle that will let me catch the wave. I have the wrong filters with me, the light is burning the colors. But lying on the stomach on the pier, I see it. I really do. 

Liquid silk. The sea is like a vast undulating shaft of silk, floating in the wind. 

Barely believing my eyes, I click and click and click.....

You can see a lot by just looking. Indeed.

Liquid silk 2

Her memories

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The reason I like photo competitions is because of the intellectual and artistic challenge they provide. Preparing to submit 3 images to a competition on time.

Got me thinking on what times means and how to depict it visually. And it is not just about the wrinkles, although I think they are beautiful. It is about the softness of the wrinkles on her face as opposed to the harsh scratches the Auschwitz barbed wire left in her soul.

Do I want this image to be selected in the juried competition? Yes. But the real win for me was the process of creating it.

This is my mother in law.

I named this image - 'Her memories'.  

The essence of a rose

I started photographing from a very good reason. As a goldsmith, I wanted to sell my jewelry online and I needed good photos. From there the road to photographing as a creative outlet was relatively short. Much shorter than the road to define to myself what is it that I really love to photograph and develop a personal signature style.

Why did I think of it now? Because since I remember myself I love gardens, and English rose gardens are at the top of my favorite ones. The white garden in Sissinghurst is something to be seen to be believed. There is a quality of fairy tale fantasy that can not be conveyed in words.

For the last 2 days I have been photographing a single rose in the garden. A pale pink one. But as beautiful as this rose is, taking a documentary shot of it did not express at all the sensuality of its petals. The delicacy and fragility of it. The impermanence - tomorrow it will start wilting, in a few days it will not be here at all. But now, today, it is just perfect. 

The essence of a rose. This is what I want to photograph.

Dreams do come true!

Thrilled and honored and quite excited to see my work in the Israeli Lens magazine side by side with the work of such great photographers. This is definitely a fabulous finale to 2014. One I could not even dream about a year ago. So, yes, dreams do come true. Even dreams we did not know we have.

The prayer

We all pray in different ways. 

Some are reciting text they deem holy. For some - their art is their prayer. This is the case with the belly dancer captured in this image. 

We did a photo shoot a few weeks ago, and when we finished, I told her that to me, her dance is the closest thing to prayer I have ever seen.

When I saw the call for photographers to submit images for the Con-Text juried exhibition at Darkroom Gallery - I knew what is the image I want to submit. 

I photographed a Psalms book we have at home, combined the images, and there it was - The prayer.

And to my greatest delight, this image was selected to be part of the exhibition opening on 1.1.15. :)

What is prayer to me? Its when you feel part of something bigger than yourself. I can feel it sometimes when I am in the midst of nature or when I succeed doing something that makes a real difference. 

What is prayer to you?

Dreaming

A self portrait assignment.

Spent a while in the garden running between the camera and the hammock. Edited the photos down to the few I liked ( or at least not disliked ...it's funny how critical we are of our own photos...). And then I stopped to think.

A self portrait. An image that says something about me at this point in life. 

Finally in a place where I can allow myself not to run. To understand the value of absorbing the quiet. To actually do nothing, although I am not sure that's what really happens when we stop doing.

To let the imagination run wild. To dream. To experiment. 

And here it is. A self portrait. dreaming.

Have you ever hugged a tree???

Many of the good things that happened to me this year have to do with photography. 

Experiencing the Carnival in Venice and the fall in Vermont. 

Restoring an old photo for my mom's 80s birthday and learning new things almost every day.

But the one that really touched my heart is the volunteering project. Photographing girls at a boarding school. Spending time with a beautiful girl, who lives in a world where the court decided she'd be better not stay at home. A girl who in one of our meetings asked me if I ever hugged a tree. Because she sometime does. Just to GIVE it love. 

A girl that has so much love to give and so few people she can give it to.

So I am thankful for getting a chance to know her. To give her just a tiny bit of the attention she deserves, and hopefully some nice memories to remember.

I am grateful my son comes home every day and can playfully swing by and kiss the top of my head (as he it way taller than I am ...). Grateful he never had to hug a tree.

Listen to Van Gogh...

The box of colors sat on the very bottom of my bookcase for years, actually since I got it as a gift from my mother in law. A beautiful and pricey wooden box with charcoal and pastels from Faber-Castel. Me, using it? That's for people who can really draw. Sometimes in the future. Maybe. 

Then I started a class in painting photos. And the last assignment was to play around with borders.

For the last days I've been playing around and enjoying myself learning new Photoshop options. 

Last night, my husband reminded me of the color box. And today, when alone so no one can see me, went upstairs, pulled the box out and dared to give it a try.

So this is it. The first time I combined drawing and photography. The frame was drawn in pastel colors, photographed and combined with a fall color image I took earlier this year in Vermont.

Autumn - my very first painted pictures. Who knows where it will lead?

Dancing light

Pure morning light. Streaming between the leaves in my front yard. 

Reminded me of my physics classes long ago. About light being both waves and particles. 

The thing that enables us to see. 

Rather than painting with light ( the actual meaning of photography ) this picture is about the unbelievable beauty of light itself.

Suspended in space, partly revealed, partly concealed. Radiating. Mysterious. Magical. Dancing between the leaves.

My morning cup of coffee

The best thing photography did to me is gift me with a new pair of eyes. Or maybe there should be a 6th sense by the name of 'noticing' in addition to 'seeing'.

As Marcel Proust said "the only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes". So true.

My morning starts with the first cup of coffee in the garden. I love this time. Just me, the coffee, the birds and the wind. I sip the coffee and look at the garden. Today, I happened to look at the cup of coffee. And really notice what I see.

It's like having new eyes. Eyes that can REALLY see.

Have a wonderful morning, and fro time to time, glance at your cup of coffee, you may be surprised by what you see :)

....shifting a bit and changing the angle - another view.

The first time ....

It's not about THAT first time, although I remember it too ....:)

Today I created the 1st image I liked with my new set of Lensbaby. While I am sure that in a few months time I will look back at this and ask myself what on earth possessed me to post it, for today I will allow myself to really love that image.

I needed the discovery of beauty today. Yesterday I returned from a social project I am involved in, full of anger at the stupidity of some people and my helplessness to magically change the world for a child. 

So yeah, today was a good day to experiment with the Lensbaby in the garden.

Rembrandt and .....manual focus

Life is funny sometimes. Moves in spiraling cycles. 

I was thinking today that it is as if I look at myself through the lens using the manual focus.

Unlike the auto-focus where you point at what you want and the camera decides on the optimal focus, the manual focus requires to turn the dial until you find the right focal distance. Sometimes, in the process, you decide to completely change what the picture is about. You keep turning the dial until the frame is perfect. Then you take the picture.

This looks a lot like my personal journey in photography.

Starting from a fuzzy concept - nature. Turn the focus dial a bit, and stopping at nature fine art. An additional tiny shift of the dial and now focusing closer on nature fine art where reality border on something that transcends reality.

The picture starts looking clearer.

more focus tweaks - reflections and post processing techniques that help blur the line between real and beyond.

And then, click!

I take the picture, and it's exactly there. Between physical and mystical. An accurate reflection of where my art is right now.

When I look at the picture (the one below) it reminds me of the dark paintings of Rembrandt. I look for him on the web, and surely enough the right quote appears. As if he is talking directly to me. Advice from a master.

Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know. ”
-Rembrandt

A room with a view

Abstract rain painting

'You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is our of focus' said Mark Twain. Food for thought isn't it? Especially when I can definitely let my imagination fly when the actual view is out of focus.

I've seen many paintings and pictures of wonderful views seen through the window. I thought about them today, when it started to rain and I raised my eyes to the window in front of me. i was sitting in a room that is half underground, the window is at grass level. An unused bicycle leans on the wall, obstructing most of the view. Never thought of this as a 'room with a view'.

But today, I looked at the window and saw the abstract painting made by the drops of rain...

Take another look at the picture. What do you see? A giant snail with a green hat? Trying to escape a chasing cloud? Marble columns?

Does it really matter that these are the outlines of a bicycle and a green patch of grass?

Who said this room does not have a view?

On birds and paradise ....

The beak of the bird

Just across the street from my house, in a small plant island in the sidewalk grow a few Bird of Paradise plants. I must have walked by them hundreds of times, but since tropical plants are not my favorite flowers and orange is not my color of choice, I never gave them a closer look.

... until a few days ago, when I coming back from an evening walk with the dog (the unexpected benefits of having a dog ...), the setting sun highlighted the flower and for the first time, I really saw it.

...and ran to grab the camera.

A bird indeed. With fiery feathers and a pointed blue tongue.

Radiating light.

What a lovely picture of paradise it conveys. Everybody radiates light. ( hopefully not everybody has pointed blue tongues :) )

Radiating light - flower hotography

Portrait of a dancer

The belly dancer

We met a few month ago. I was looking for a model to photograph for a portrait project, she was looking to renew the photographs on her site.

The click was immediate. I danced for many years, somewhere on my to do list is learning belly dancing. For her, dancing is the way you learn to love your body. not the perfect one you do not have, but the one you do. The way to connect with your most inner self, to pray, to be happy.

We went to a sandy park, when the sun was just about to set. She with a few costumes, I with a few lenses.

She danced barefooted on the sand, I danced with the camera around her.

Is this her portrait? A portrait of my yet unfulfilled wishes? The essence of dance?

Or maybe all of these together.

Mirror, mirror on the wall .....

The kiss - A passion fruit flower reflected 

There are times when different things just come together. Yesterday was one of these times.

Recently I started to understand I am drawn to reflections. It's the perfect meeting point between reality and imagination. 

A few weeks ago, I decided to give an online fine photography class a try. In one of the lessons the teacher introduced the Photoshop mirroring effect and we were supposed to experiment with it. For some reason, I did not find this effect very appealing, in most cases it created a trivial and unnatural look which I don't really like. But I still had an assignment to do ....

After being stuck for a few days on looking for right subjects for a mirroring image, yesterday, when coming home from my morning walk with the dog I noticed a passion fruit flower on the fence. To photograph it partly and then see what I can do with mirroring? Actually, why not to try shooting it with an actual mirror? This is after all a passion fruit, and passion does call for 2, right?

Before even taking a shower, I grabbed a mirror and the camera and for 2 hours had fun shooting the flower on a mirror in different ways. But the real fun began when I started processing the images. Trying to convey the different aspects of passion through the images. Creating romanticized versions - almost like a kiss, where the real flower maintains a wisp of color just enough to convey it is the leading partner.

Creating pure sensual feels in black and white images, with subtle different processing for the flower and its reflection.

And finally, letting the reflection take over and getting a life of itself courtesy of Photoshop liquify tool.  

A passion story in 3 pictures: the kiss (above), sensuality and play below.

Sensuality - touching, reaching for one another.

Now we are having fun - the reflection gets a life of its own

The gift of rain

The gift of rain

The Macro lens was reserved to photograph my jewelry art. Not only it allows me to take detailed pictures of the pieces, but it is also my quality control, as every tiny blemish will show.

Until now.

Back to Israel after a month away, when I left it was scorching summer. Now the air is cooler, and it already rained twice this week.

And my macro lens got another use. Shooting raindrops. 

Not that it was such a success the first time I tries. Macro shooting and the wind are not good companions. 

But I am stubborn (as my husband will readily agree...) and I kept trying until I was able to capture it. Not perfect yet, but already able to express what I saw.

The gift of rain. Nature's gift to us.

Enjoy.

One drop was caught on a spider web

...back to reflections. Light and a raindrop