THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S PARADISE

Israel can be paradise to anyone with a love for photography even an amateur photographer like me.  Each of the photographs in this blog was taken with a simple Canon mini-camera.  Sometimes my SLR Nikon is just too heavy to carry around for a full day of touring.  I'll admit I played with the pictures afterwards, cropped one or two ,and converted them to black and white, in order to highlight the variety, texture, and shades, of the rock and stone.  I was pleased with the results and decided to share some of them here on this blog. The truth is; life is more difficult nowadays for professional photographers.  Modern technology helps us all look more like professionals.  

The first two photos were taken last Spring in Ein Avdat - a magnificent natural canyon in the Negev Desert just south of the Kibbutz of Sdei Boker where David Ben Gurion retired and lived out the last few years of his life.  The graves of Ben Gurion and his wife Paula overlook the Tzin Desert river bed from the north and the opening of the Avdat canyon flows into the Tzin river bed from the south. From there the water flows northeast towards the Dead Sea.  Ein Avdat is a wonderful hike for the family to take and represents a section of desert that is readily accessible and easy to handle even with younger children.  

Note the Ibex or יעל standing at the edge of the cliff in the afternoon sun.   My group and I watched as the Ibex jumped from ledge to ledge along the side of the cliff and perhaps down to the water's edge to drink from the springs at the bottom of the canyon.  The light layers of rock consist of chalky limestone while the darker layers sandwiched in between them are made of much harder flint that resists erosion and thus protrudes from the softer limestone surrounding it.   

The next shot is a panorama of the canyon as it winds it way north by northwest, through the desert plateau.  There is a large flock of birds flying above the canyon in formation.  Each one looks like a spec in the distance but as a group they are easily followed as they turn in unison flying from side to side and down the length of the canyon.  Below us the abundant vegetation is fed by the water flowing along at the base of the canyon. What we cannot see here are the waterfalls and natural reflecting pools formes by the water as it makes its way down the canyon into the Tzin desert and eventually to the area south of the Dead Sea.

Moving to Ophel (Acropolis) Area near the Southern Wall excavations adjacent to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the following is a photo taken this summer depicts part of the city wall which archaeologist Eilat Mazar attributes all the way back to the period of King Solomon during the latter half of the 10th century BCE.  We can clearly see where the older Solomonic wall (on the left) joins with another wall that was built centuries latter and attached to the older wall.  Each one of these discoveries contributes important pieces of the puzzle that archaeologist and continuously trying to interpret and solve.  As new discoveries come to light, the prevailing theories are debated and discussed, adjusted and changed, and our picture of what Jerusalem looked like 3,000 years ago is altered on a regular basis.  

The final two photographs are taken from visits to two of the most well-known Tels (Archeological Mounds) in Israel.  The first depicts the six chambered gate house of the city of Gezer.  This is generally referred to as a Solomonic Gatehouse.  When Gezer was under excavation in 1957, the highly respected soldier and Archeologist, Yigal Yadin, thought he recognized the Solomonic gate structure and directed the workers as to where they should dig and where they would find the sides of the walls.  Based on the passage in the Biblical text which says;

 וְזֶה דְבַר הַמַּס אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָה הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה לִבְנוֹת אֶת בֵּית יְקֹוָק וְאֶת בֵּיתוֹ וְאֶת הַמִּלּוֹא וְאֵת חוֹמַת יְרוּשָׁלִָם וְאֶת חָצֹר    וְאֶת מְגִדּוֹ וְאֶת גָּזֶר: 

(מלכים א פרק ט:טו)

And this describes the tax set by King Solomon to finance the construction of .......  the walls of Jerusalem, Hatzor, Meggiddo and Gezer.  (Kings 1  9:15),

Yadin made the assumption that, consistent with the Biblical passage, the size and structure of the gatehouse would be very similar to the gates that had been discovered at Hazor and at Meggiddo.  In this instance, he was proven to be correct and came across to the workers at Gezer as something of a magician or clairvoyant. 

The final photograph is taken from the Tel of ancient Gat, the Philistine city that was the home of Goliath and later on the refuge of David, Goliath's nemesis, as he hid himself from the wrath of King Saul and pretended to ally himself with the arch enemies of the Israelites. At the top of this cliff, the ongoing excavations are currently uncovering one of the walls of the crusader castle of Blancheguarde.  The name Blancheguarde may come from the French word for white or blanche.  As you can see from the photo, the cliffs underneath the castle were white and visible from many Kilometers way. If I am not mistaken, the caves in the photo may be remnants of stone quarries where the stones for the outer wall of the castle were excavated. Thus the outer wall of the castle may have glistened white in the bright Israeli sunlight as well.