Darkroom Daisies

Lately.

My life is a mess right now in so many ways. My thoughts are disorganized, and so is my apartment. In that temperment, I wanted to share with you a random mix of photos that I've been working on lately that don't necessarily have any correlation with one another.

Linoy.

Abandoned Restaurant. Hagalil, Israel.

Dagon and Merkaz Hashmona Train Station. Haifa, Israel.

New Year's Resolution Still Life.

Middle Eastern Playground. Kiriat Eliezer, Israel. (Part of my typology series).

Gravel Playground. Kfar Vradim, Israel. (Also part of my typology series).

Tofi the Dog. Sdeh Warburg, Israel. 

Dirt Road. Sdeh Warburg, Israel.

Portrait by Eric. 

Enjoy the weekend.

Sincerely Sophie

Happy First Night!

This is the first time in 3 years that I lit the candles on Chanuka. It seems slightly absurd since I've been in Israel for all of that time. But this year I want to light because I miss the tradition.

I also wanted to wear my sivivon (dreidel) earrings but one of them is broken. I tried to save it using super glue, but it was one of those failed cases in which most of the glue ended up on my fingers. So, no sivivon earrings this year. I'll have to wait until dad can fix them.

Actually, last year I did light a Chanukia, but it was for a project in which I pasted myself into photographs of family occasions that I missed out on since I was in Israel. Here's the relevant photo in case you didn't see it before.

So here's my family at home, and the me part was photographed in the studio at school, millions of miles away and months after the holiday season. That was actually a fun project. I'm considering continuing it this year if I get the time/inspiration.

Right as I was setting up my camera to photograph the candles, it started getting really loud outside. This is what I saw (lots of Arab kids standing and yelling in the middle of the road in front of the high school). I thought the lights went well with tonight's post theme.

But mostly, this post is just a reassurance to my mom that I am celebrating the holiday even though I'm not at home. I said the prayers and everything, awkwardly by myself, but awkward is better than missing out. I'm thinking of you and the rest of the family.

Happy first night!

Sincerely Sophie

HDR and eat your veggies!

I made my first HDR photo. 

You're probably wondering what this means, so first I'll show the definition I found online and then I'll show the final HDR photo as well as its composite photos. Stop cringing...you'll understand in a second!

HDR: High Dynamic Range is a digital photography technique whereby multiple exposures of the same scene are layered and merged using image editing software to create a more realistic image, or a dramatic effect. The combined exposures can display a wider range of tonal values than what the digital camera is capable of recording in a single image.

This is what it looks like: 

This is a combination of four photos, each with different exposures, whose combination creates a surreal effect. Why? Because our eyes cannot "read" over a certain number of exposures properly all at the same time. This means that if your eyes are searching for details in a dark area of a scene, for example, in between the bushes, they cannot also see the relatively bright sky at a reasonable brightness; compared to the dark bushes, the sky should look extremely bright. But HDR allows the photographer to combine multiple "proper" exposures, to the effect that the sky is not so different in shade from the dark bushes. That's just not natural.

Here are the four, composite photos: (Keep an eye on the sky to see the jumps in exposure)

And here's the final HDR again: 

My overall review of the HDR technique is that it looks cool but it's not my taste. It's like trying a new vegetable at family dinner once a week (is that just my family?): you have to try it before saying you don't like it!

My dad's pretty good at HDR though-it's his trademark.

Sincerely Sophie

Fresh Air

Today's post consists of the second installment of photos I took while my family came to visit. The first few are from the guest house where they stayed, and the rest are from the tiyul that we took on Saturday afternoon.

ENJOY!

Sincerely Sophie

Blue Skies and Orange Eyes

Lately I've been really tied up--with some tedious, school-related things, and also with good things like photography and a brief yet much needed visit from family! They came all the way from America to see me and we had lots of fun. 

Here is the first installment of photos from their visit. The following are from the old city in Akko, a port city in the north of Israel. I really enjoyed using Dad's polarizing filter. It made the skies blue like snap! No sweat or tears. It was also a treat to use one of his wide angle lenses as well as a suuupppper telephoto lens (it was so long, I almost couldn't hold it steady!).

Notice the guy rolling paint?

It was a relief to photograph again with my dad. It was a good reminder for me to photograph what catches my eye as opposed to building shots or photographing what I think my school will deem as "art".

D & L.

Nice photo dad! Sophie and Lauren.

I feel like looking for windows to photograph is something my Dad does too.

Frightening mannequin head.

A cliché of Dad and Donna. Silhouette, sunburst, the whole nine yards. 

Find the cat?

Special thanks to the polarizing filter here.

I'd never seen orange eyes before!

Arab woman scraping the windowsill. 

D & L.

Depth of Field Donna.

Something about the church and the bike riders reminded me of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the "Decisive Moment" in photography.

Portrait of D3 and D7000.

That's the last of this set. There's plenty more to come :)

Sincerely Sophie

Heartfelt.

To be completely honest, the next round of photos I'm about to share with you have nothing to do with each other. I just like them and want you to see, yet none of the photos alone could constitute an entire blog post. 

So, please take this post at face value, a random mix of odds and ends yet coming from the heart as usual!

This photo is from the top of my street in the US. I was driving home and noticed some really ususual, orange light hitting the tops of a few trees selectively, in the opposite direction of the sunset. As many photographer's know, the golden hour seems to pass after just a few snaps of the camera. My camera and tripod were not with me in the car, so when I got to the house I rushed to get all the necessary equipment and drove back to the top of the street.

Of course, when I got there, that perfect, orange light was gone. What I managed to photograph was still beautiful, but I bet hundreds of people snapped the same photo with their iphones. In other words, I had to settle for photographing the "average Joe" sunset becuase I missed the photographer's shot. I learned from this photograph that as much as possible, I should always have a camera with me.

This is Bailey from home--I miss her! I can't wait until I can move my dog, Marley, to Haifa with me.

This is me, sporting the "grime" look. I have a bad feeling that once I finally grow out of my zits, I will just have wrinkles instead. 

Sometimes magic happens in the early hours of morning. I want to make an effort to wake up early on the weekends to catch things like this.

This is my neighbor--I babysat him the other day. The second he stepped into my apartment, he dumped a backpack full of plastic toys on the ground. We had to improvise by using some of my stuff since apparently, 1,000 toys wasn't enough. 

See what I mean?...Random yet heartfelt.

Sincerely Sophie

Snake Pancake

This post has been a long time coming! Here's the story:

One day this summer, I stepped out into the garage, probably on my way to the car, when I spotted a tiny, red, stringy looking thing. I took a closer look and the red string was actually a dead snake. Cockraoches are way worse. But anyway, back to the story.

It was only a matter of seconds before I was visually brainstorming how to photograph the snake. I would need to use my dad's macro lens, since the snake was so tiny. But my Dad was away for a few days for work. So, I brown-bagged the little guy and left him in a high place in the garage where the cats wouldn't reach him. 

Two days later, I decided that I couldn't postpone the photo shoot any longer. Sure enough, when I opened the brown bag, the tiny snake looked oily and reeked a stench I (luckily) had never smelled before. I tried out the unfamiliar lens, toting the snake from rock to rock with two twigs. I started out with a regular tripod, but after a few shots I felt it was limiting my movement, so I swapped it for a monopod.

At one point, Peewee, our hunter cat, appeared on the scene and began pacing suspiciously. I think he was waiting for me to leave so he could eat my still life project. Once I had exhausted all creative energies, I flung the then super-reeking snake carcas into the woods, hoping Peewee wouldn't find it.

Here are my best shots:

The family gargoyle who sits in the front yard.

Notice he's flat in the middle? I don't know what that's all about. Maybe he got run over in the garage.

Sincerely Sophie

Blur of a Weekend

This weekend went by so fast. On Friday morning I traveled to Tel Aviv from Haifa with my friend Eric to see a few art galleries. We didn't have very much time being as some of the train lines were temporarily down and we had to get back to Haifa before public transportation completely shut down for the weekend.

Then, I traveled north to the kibbutz for a pretty typical weekend. I completed the first stage of a photo assignment and read a few articles for school, I mended Daniel's knife holder, played with Marley and met a great new dog, watched the movie 300 with Daniel, Adi and her boyfriend (it was so bad, we laughed most of the time), and celebrated Alberto's birthday. 

It was no fun going back to Haifa early Sunday morning in the cold. Especially with wet hair...I always forget that my hairdryer is in Haifa. 

Here are 3 random photos from the weekend (none of which are related to my current project).

Laundry room window.

Linoy feeding a newborn kitten.

Sort of cute, sort of scary.

Sincerely Sophie

Pretty Green Olives

Daniel decided to prepare his own olives this year! A lot more goes into it than I expected. Here are some photos showing the first stages.

The olive picking Daniel did by himself. Afterwards, he and I sat on the floor and crushed the olives (on a clean surface) with rocks. Breaking the olives allows the spices to soak into them for flavor. It was a very messy process; by the time we had crushed all of the olives, my hands and feet were covered in dirt and oil. I still can't get all the dirt out from underneath my fingernails!

After the olives are crushed and checked for freshness, they are stored in glass jars with water and a splash of olive oil. Over the next few days, Daniel will change the water. Later on, he will mix in various spices and the olives will soak in the jars. The process takes about a month and a half!

Here he is with his olives :)

He's taking this olive thing very seriously...

Sincerely Sophie

PS Welcome home Gilad!!!

(Part 1) Why Did the Horse Cross the Road?

Here's a preview of my next post:

You'll just have to wait and see!

Sincerely Sophie