Category Archives: Uncategorized
dead sea
דג בת ים
Fish, Bat Yam beach.
Disposable
I took part in a photography project created by a London based photographer, Mayah Parmenter. You can read more about the project here on Mayah’s blog. Basically, Mayah is sending disposable cameras to people around the world and asking them to take photos of their city or town.
Yosef, king of carpets
bieber fever
A Justin Bieber (that prepubescent tweenybopper) craze has hit Israel, ahead of his upcoming gig here in Tel Aviv this Passover. His face is everywhere: posters, magazines, specially designed t-shirts in the windows of fashion stores. I overhear people talking about him in the streets. Are their kids going? Are your kids going? It’s all good.
high noon
надзор
a monument to the conquerors of space
The Monument to the Conquerors of Space (Монумент «Покорителям космоса») from the Alley of the Cosmonauts near VDNKh, north Moscow.
See that random vignette and the weird reddish tint? That’s no Photoshop or “iNostalgia” iPhone app! That’s the genuine article – a crappy Soviet camera and terrible post-Soviet film doing what it does best – taking photos of Communist monuments.
Notes:
1. Under the monument is a space museum that contains a stuffed replica (or the real thing, I can’t remember) of the first dog in space. It’s been reconstructed now, but when I went there, I was the only visitor and was shown around by an elderly lady of the battleaxe type. I cried when I saw the dog, and she was so moved that she let me take a photo with my cheap Russian camera.
2. The monument has a poem etched on it, which in the immediately post-Soviet aftermath reminded me a bit of “Ozymandias”:
И наши тем награждены усилья,
Что поборов бесправие и тьму,
Мы отковали пламенные крылья
- Своей
- Стране
- И веку своему!
- Стране
“And these are the rewards for our efforts,
That we, triumphing over lawlessness and darkness,
Forged flaming wings
For our country
And our century!”
(Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!/ Nothing beside remains)
empty lot
This huge piece of land has been empty for over five years, an eternity in an area where new buildings are springing up all the time. So there must be either a dispute over it, or it’s contaminated and has to lie empty for a time. On the other three corners of the junction are olive groves, a weird thing to have in the middle of a city. Who does the land belong to and what’s its story?
(NB: the pictures look rather small in this new template, but if you want to see one larger, you can just click on it. Easy!)
