A few hours in the old city Jerusalem – it’s all about people (part i)

 

It was a regular weekend. The sunny morning promised a wonderful day for a long walk and photography. As usual, my decision to drive for the walk to Jerusalem was spontaneous. The distance from my living place to Jerusalem is around 100 km, so there is no need for a special preparation, just to decide who will be my companion during this day (i mean which camera i will take with me) and go on a trip. Sometimes i stop for a morning coffee on the half way to my destination, But this time I went straight ahead, without stopping because i had another idea.

I entered the old city through the New Gate. This gate is the newest from the whole 8 gates of the Old City and takes to the Christian Quarter. It was built in 1889 by the Ottomans under the directorship of the French consul. Just for comparison, the oldest gate – Golden Gate ( is sealed since 1541)- was built in 6th century. These day, the street continuing after the New Gate is full of the nice cafeterias and nice place to sit, especially at morning, when the sun is still not too strong. Recently this street became very popular by locals (not by tourists entering the Old City from the Jaffa Gate), so i love to go along taking photographs or just observing the area around. And. one of thee cafeterias is always attracts me to sit 10 minutes with the strong coffee and fresh pastries – something with a cinnamon is in my favorites.

Every time I come here, I try to turn onto some unfamiliar street and walk along it, looking in which direction it leads me. The City topology organization is very complex, with many parallel streets, as well with lot of diagonal and circumferential paths, so, there is always a place for the surprise at the end. Due to some kind of “stabilization” of the situation in our region, tourists have returned to Jerusalem. During the walk I met many groups from all over the world. Indians and Filipinos, Russians and Americans, all the languages of Europe and Japanese tourists. Sure, big part of them are coming for religious reasons and interests. Personally, I don’t care which god people pray to, but just let them do it in the most peaceful way, without interfering or imposing one on the other.

I tried to finish this pot yesterday after the long workday, but instead of this decided to finish the review and editing process of the band photographs, i photographed at the GIG last weekend. Most of the images of this night already were published, but the photos of one of band, organized this gig, remained on the memory card of my pocket camera. Somehow I was afraid that I couldn’t express with photographed images what i saw during this show on stage. That my stills photographs are like a music with a long pauses in the middle instead of notes and sounds. But when I finally looked at the photos, I was shocked. in the good sense of this word. Well, it’s my personal opinion about this specific series. If you still use FB, you can see these posts. The series is divided to 2 parts – one full of colors and another one my usual preference – black and white edition.

If you ask me, what the hell am I still doing on FB, my answer is simple. FB is still remains the only place (well, also IG) where i can share my works with friends. All the musician prefer these platforms as well due to the available option to manage and to find local events, whatever they about – Art exhibitions, rock’n’roll, electronic music events or political protests. I don’t see any other platform, replacing FB for this easily available feature. Actually, it makes me sad.

You cab find my works on substack[dot]com Or can support my photography activity by buying me a roll of BW FILM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you haven’t done it yet – please check my recently made photo slide show. These photographs of my good friend Nomi i photographed with both Ricoh GRii and the 15 years old old work-horse Canon 5d mkii cameras during the night session in the white dunes. Naomi is amazing Fire Art artist. take a look and preferably on large monitors, please.

 

 

And, additionally, my last photozine “Isolated in 2020″” is still available on the Blurb store. I photographed the images in the far 2020, during the second (or third) massive isolation due to the only known by our government methods to combat the pandemic. It was a Holidays time and our offices were closed, so the only thing I had to do was staying at home and walking around my village and taking images.