Category Archives: Desert

Through the Lens, Dead Sea

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Israel consists of a very broad range of geography: coast, desert, mountains, forests, in a very small area making it a great photo location for those interested in nature and landscape. The Dead Sea is an incredible and unique place to photograph, at the lowest point on earth, part of the Great African Rift valley, in the crack in the earth’s crust created when Asia and Africa were torn apart five million years ago.

If you’re into photography and want to make that part of your Israel experience you need a guide who is also a photographer. I am delighted to announce that I am offering personalized photography tours of Israel (along with tours focussed on history, archaeology, religion and more), to enable you to get the photographs you’re looking for.

Here are some of my photographs from a photoshoot that I did with clients starting at sunrise at the Dead Sea.

 

Here’s what the clients said:

We got some amazing sunrise photos at the Dead Sea, we hiked through canyons and got lots of cool shots there, then Shmuel found some unique salt formations back at the Dead Sea. We captured some great photos of sinkholes.

To sum it up this was the highlight of our 17 day trip to Israel. Shmuel delivered beyond our greatest expectations.

One shot, two ways

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When you’re taking photographs and looking for the best shot you have a choice of whether to shoot the scene in landscape (horizontally) or portrait (vertically). When looking at landscape photographs you usually expect the scene to be horizontal. Sometimes a vertical shot gives a very different view.

I was driving down to the Dead Sea to take clients for a hike in Nahal Arugot to the Hidden Waterfall and we were talking about desert, water and sinkholes. Since they were also interested in photography I decided we should stop to explore and photograph some sinkholes I’d seen near the checkpoint.

Sinkhole at Dead Sea, Israel

Sinkhole at Dead Sea, Israel

I took the same shot, two ways. Photographs were taken on November 2, 2017 with a Nikon 5300 DSLR camera with 18-200mm zoom lens. Technical details – ISO 250,  F11, 1/500 sec, the horizontal photo, 24mm, the vertical one 20mm.

If you’re interested in having a guide who also knows where to take you for some great photographs contact me.

Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise).

Photo of the Week – Nahal Zin

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Nahal Zin is in the Negev near Sde Boker and meanders along so that you cross it a number of times along highway 40. I was with clients on the way to Eilat and Petra, Jordan, the Nabatean capital, and we stopped for the night at one of the family farms, Carmey Avdat, that has planted a vineyard on terracing that was prepared by the Nabateans some 2000 years ago. In the morning we went to visit the nearby Nabatean city of Avdat and the makhtesh along the legendary Spice Route that led from Yemen across the Negev to the port at Gaza.

This photograph was taken from the lookout above En Avdat a couple of weeks ago on that trip. I think the hills look like the meringue on the top of one of my son Amitai’s lemon pies.

nahal-zin-meringue

The technical details – the photo above was taken with a Nikon 5300 digital SLR camera in October 2016 (ISO 320, 32mm, F11 at 1/500 sec).

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Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in buying or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

Photos Touring the Negev

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If you are interested in photographing the desert then contact me about exploring Israel’s Negev with a guide – you will get some great photo opportunities. Today I guided En Avdat, the Large Makhtesh and then we drove down the Aqrabim Ascent to the Dead Sea. Here are a selection of photos from our day.

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En Avdat

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Large Makhtesh

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Down from Aqrabim Ascent

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Dead Sea

These photos were taken yesterday, a very sunny day in June with my Nikon D5300 DSLR camera, this last one at ISO 800, 26mm, F13 and 1/1000 sec.

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Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in purchasing one of my photos or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

Photo of the Week – Solomon’s Pillars

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In my most recent post about the exhibit at the Israel Museum I mentioned the Egyptian goddess Hathor which Canaanite worker-miners identified with their Ba’alat. Timna is a popular place north of Eilat for hiking. As your guide, I can show you a shrine to Hathor and an engraving of the Pharaoh Ramses III that was found, 1st half of 12th Century BCE.

This week’s photo is of Solomon’s Pillars, tall sandstone rock formations at Timna, one of the places in Israel where ancient Egyptian artifacts were found.

Solomon's Pillars 2

The technical details – this photo was taken late afternoon with a Nikon D90 digital SLR camera in February 2010 (ISO 220, 25mm, F10 at 1/250 sec). Clicking on the image will display it larger.

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Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in buying or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.

Photo of the Week – Sinkholes at Dead Sea

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I was guiding yesterday at Masada and Ein Gedi and talked about the changes in the levels of the Dead Sea and the occurrence of sinkholes along the shoreline. We stopped to take a look at some sinkholes closeup and I took these two photographs of a blue sinkhole and a photo of salt patterns at the edge of the sea. The Dead Sea is a unique location and it is fascinating to photograph there. You can also see another post of sinkhole photos here.

Blue sinkholeSalt patternsSinkhole

The technical details – the photos were taken with a Nikon 5300 digital SLR camera yesterday early afternoon (first photo at  ISO 360, 18mm, F11 at 1/500 sec). Clicking on the image will display it larger.

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Photographs on this website are © Shmuel Browns (unless marked otherwise) – if you are interested in buying or using one of my photos for your own project please contact me.