Well, after a week in Israel and two missed blog postings, I'm back. I'd say I missed you all, but I didn't really. I love traveling and this was quite the traveling experience. I went for my sister's wedding, but one of the benefits of a destination wedding is the ability to take photos... lots and lots of photos. I took about four 16GB memory cards and I almost filled three of them with hundreds, if not thousands of photos. I've been back for almost a week and since then I've culled them down to about 600 keepers. I feel like some of those are really great and some will only be great to my family, but I had a great time and really loved bonding with my camera. It was an amazing place and over the next week or so, I'll be sharing tons of the photos from my trip. In the meantime, I thought I'd share one to wet your appetite. Let me set the stage for you. I was in Tel Aviv for the second half of my trip and I decided, without any knowledge of where I was going, to try and get up for sunrise and head over to the Mediterranean to take some photos. So I set my alarm and got directions for how to go down to the water. It was about a 20 minute walk and it went off without a hitch. However once I got there, I realized that there wasn't anything but empty beach around. I could see the old city far beyond and the sky scrapers of the new city as I looked in the opposite direction, but where I was, there wasn't a lot. It just goes to show you that when you're in a new place, it really benefits you to do a little research before heading off to take photos. After walking for a little bit and thinking that my morning was hopeless, I happened upon this old pier. I was stoked and I knew with a long exposure, this had the potential of being a really cool shot. There was a fisherman on the pier getting ready to fish for breakfast, but after I asked he graciously said he was happy to share the space with me. The most interesting part of the experience wasn't getting to the sea, it was coming back. I quickly realized that I had no idea where I had walked to or how to get back to my hotel. The good news is everybody in Tel Aviv that I ran into was really nice and I felt very safe. People were more than happy to try and point me in the right direction. Having my camera with me actually saved me as I couldn't remember the address to my hotel. The good news was I had taken a photo of the chocolate shop a few blocks down from where I was staying and that photo was still on my camera. So, not speaking the language wasn't a problem... I could just point to the photo on the back of the camera and folks knew exactly where I was trying to go. The fact that everybody I asked gave me DIFFERENT directions is besides the point... they meant well. So that 20 minute walk I took to get me down to the water was over an hour and a half walk to get back!
Here's the photo I came home with:
This photo was taken right at sunrise. It was a 30 second exposure which is why the water looks so silky and creamy. Using a long exposure does the exact opposite of what using a fast shutter speed would do. A fast shutter speed freezes all the action... that would mean the water and waves would freeze right where they were. The long exposure blurs the area of the image with movement, so although the pier is really sharp (because it wasn't moving), the surrounding water that was flowing in and out is creamy smooth.
This is one photo with lots more to come. Stay tuned. I promise there will be at least one that you like and if not I'll give you your money back.