Tel Aviv 2023 – living in constant building and rebuilding.
Hello there my friends. I’m always glad to see you visiting my blog from time to time. As I said in one of my previous posts, I returned back to reading blogs and significantly reduced the amount of time I spend in front of my Youtube subscribers page. Recently I stopped following all the unnecessary stuff which I watched daily, until some point of sudden insight, that I lost my patience with reading long texts, and prefer to get the visualization of the oingsomething/doingnothing. It’s much easier to listen and to watch instead of to read and concentrate on the narrative of storytelling or considerations about something serious, not always related to the photography only.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I’m taking photographs, and even more, why I publish them on Social media sites. I remember the pre-internet days, but… I never took photographs before the internet started. When people are photographed and printed on paper. No Flicker, no DeviantArt, no photo sharing, no contests, no challenges and no likes, no curation, attention, and author payouts. But this is absolutely another story unrelated to photography.
My post today is about living in the middle of a constant building and rebuilding site. Welcome to the city, where I’m working, walking, and parting, every single day. The city never will be finished in terms of abrupt changes. It is dependently young and definitely never sleeping, never stopping, and never done its “restoration”.
I photographed this series during the recent holydays. During a few walks, I put my attention on the mountains of construction garbage, regular garbage, number of builds and rebuilds. These scenes made me crazy. But thanks to the holiday – the city was empty, as well these construction sites stayed silent. But from another side, if to put my complaints aside, I love to take images exactly of the places which look like these below…
Additionally, don’t forget to visit my Youtube channel with a few slideshows. “Simple Objects” is one of my old, but favorite:
Empty, silent cities and towns have an eerie quality to them that — I think — you just have to try to capture. Small towns where the decay sits next door to business are infinitely fascinating.
The amount of time your city has been in the process of updating itself… it’s staggering to think about.
you’re right. i loved photographing empty streets during the 2020-21. Now I’m doing this at the weekends early mornings 😉
I think that’s the trick… Here in Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods is a draw, and balanced rock is usually crowded. In January this year, I got up and headed over there before sunrise (in 20F/-7C temperature) just to avoid the crowds…
(https://simplifyaddlightness.wordpress.com/2023/02/17/balanced-rock-ii/ )
Empty city streets are sort of unnerving… and thus amazing subjects 😀
Yes “bad” weather is the trick for me as well. I am doing this a lot during the winter stormy cold days when people avoid going out for picnics and walks.
http://www.victorbezrukov.com/chasing-the-fog-in-the-jerusalem-mountains-with-nikon-f2/
I guess we’ll be the only two fools out in the hurricane! I’ll wave when I see you!
I love your images in that post — moody and grainy. I was struck with the thought, why can I never appreciate this look in my own 400 ISO images?
He he i will say you ho as well ;-)))))
I love them also with higher ISO. thank you for taking a look.
Victor These photos are simply real .. probably a week later something will no longer there such as an umbrella:. great series!
yes, this building close to the wild and free at night parking is already destroyed, and freed the place for another skyscraper ;-(
“Overloaded” ground scenes help the eyes to push up the wiew to the sky caged by human artifacts
you’re so right. i did this a few times during these walks. 🙏🏿
Yes, the area around Ben Yehuda / Allenby is crazy at the moment. This is a good project… one day it will finish (eventually) and these photos will be a piece of history.
Thank you for taking a look and for the kind words. I’m photographing the old Jaffa and the Southern TA area for more than 15 years. On film and digital. I see the changes every time i visit it. Not every change is complimenting these streets. The new buildings of Florentine are looking like they are here by mistake 😉
These are really interesting areas to photograph! Every time I come to Israel there are so many changes, things are evolving very quickly. Your photographs are very atmospheric, i’m enjoying looking through your past blog posts! The panoramic camera especially looks really interesting.
Huge thank you Stuart.
really great images, Victor, love your views to the urbex city. I’m a bit stuck in photographing at the moment due to other things in my life… I remember I’ve started a project urban textures a few years ago (how fast time flies) and I think I would like to continue this soon.
Thank you Chris for the kind words. I’ve been too busy at work for many months, but always pushed myself to go taking photographs for some personal projects and just about the life around me. The period is very tight. Hope you will pass over your situation and return back to photography soon.
thanks Victor, really appreciate your words.. I hope so, it’s just sometimes I don’t have the energy to pick up my camera (it’s getting better) and I have dealt with kind of depression and burn out this past dull winter months 😞
I understand Chris. Wish you the best and as much as possible to return back with the renewed energies!
I like your bold use of shadows, Victor
Thank you Deborah. Its unbelievable that when i started photography i tried to avoid any trace of shadows in my images. Now I’m using shadow as an additional object everywhere i find it 😉
Love these!
Thank you Cody !