Foto Friday – Jerusalem Ice Festival

March 2, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, News, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel 

It’s zero degrees Celsius here in Jerusalem right now. Commonly known as the temperature at which water freezes, the weather is also a perfect backdrop to the Jerusalem Ice Festival which opens this coming Sunday.

A team of 20 Chinese ice sculptors came to Israel to create the exhibit which is divided into four sections, starting with Jerusalem of Ice where visitors walk through the ice version of Jaffa Gate…

Visit famous Jerusalem sites, like the Tower of David…

Sir Moses Montefiore’s windmill…

…and Montefiore’s carriage (that’s Mayor Nir Barkat inside)…

Or slide down the pride of Kiryat HaYovel, the “Golem” by Niki de Saint Phalle, now recast in crystallized H20!

After the Jerusalem section there are Animals and Childhood Stories, the Fantasy area, the Ice Bar, which features ice-works by local artists and an ice skating rink.

Here’s a quick look at how it all got done…

The Ice Festival takes place from March 6th- April 30th 2012 at the old Jerusalem Train compound. The festival will showcase dozens of ice sculptures, skating rinks and a variety of family-oriented activities. Admission fee is 65 NIS and yes, visitors will receive coats on entering the complex, which will operate at a temperature of -10 degrees Celsius. For more information: Jerusalem Ice Festival.

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Foto Friday – Timelapse Israel

February 24, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, Movies, Picture of the Week, Travel, tv 

Maybe it’s the geopolitical situation, maybe simply the truncated of month of February. Whatever the reason, it feels like time is moving faster and faster.

In previous columns, we’ve viewed Israel through the stereoscopic lens, through cyan and red 3D anaglyphs, 3D still images and even cutting-edge 3D video. Today, in keeping with our sense of time speeding up, we’ll look at Israel through the time-lapse photography lens.

Time-lapse photography, as Wikipedia has it, “is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing.”

Production company Highlight Films has created a 180-second tour of Israel…

Vitaly Viazovsky gives us Jerusalem scenes…

Time-lapse fascinates videographer Amos Rafaeli…

And videographer Eugene Azerbouf created this tour of Tel Aviv’s Yarkon River park…

Sunset Timelapse in Israel by videographer Carolyn Moreau is a 15 second video postcard captured this past winter in the Galilee…

You can read more about how Moreau took the shot on her blog. All Highlight Films footage available for licensing. Contact: archive@highlight.co.il.

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Foto Friday – Will it snow?

February 17, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Picture of the Week, Science, Technology, Travel 

We have been having a lot of weather lately. By this I mean that as opposed to previous years where we could count on steady winter drought conditions — chilly weather punctuated by the occasional shower — this year has been unusually cold and very, very rainy. This weekend even holds the promise — or is that the threat? — of snow beyond the Golan and by this I mean snow predictions for Jerusalem which may or may not happen. Right now it’s simply terribly windy and wet, wet, wet. Doesn’t look like snow conditions to this New England girl but stranger things have happened here in the Holy Moly Land.

Let’s check how things look from the air, courtesy of Israel Weather, which provides links to a number of real-time satellite observation sites, like Sat24.com which provides an excellent view on the clouds in the sky and an indication of the meteo weather.

A precipitation forecast from Germany’s Foreca…

A lightening map from Blitzortung, a real-time, community based lightning detection and lightning location network…

The general forecast from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)…

Dust storm monitoring from EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, whose purpose is to deliver weather and climate-related satellite data, images and products– 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

You can view live updates online at Israel Weather and we’ll keep you posted as to whether or not it snows. In the meantime, it just keeps on raining…

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Foto Friday – Benefits of Rain

February 10, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, Entertainment, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel, tv 

It’s still raining and I’m still not a fan. My surly attitude notwithstanding, the benefits are beginning to make themselves felt: the water level at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) rose 55 centimeters in January, and as of yesterday stood at 212.94m below sea level. Which means we’ve just passed the lower red line of 213m below sea level. That’s good news. Or, as Tweeted by Kinbot, a computer generated daily report of the Kinneret water level, “Good show, Israel!”.

Tel Aviv Beach – Wintertime 2012
Photo by Ilan Malester, Courtesy of the Ministry of the Environment

Well, yes. It’s definitely an improvement but reaching the line doesn’t mean we’re done with the drought yet. The lower red line is a fluctuating government-recommended level below which water should no longer be drawn from the lake. Beyond it, there’s the black line, at 215 meters below sea level, the point at which pumping water becomes dangerous and must be shut down. We hit that on November 29, 2001. There is also an upper red line, set at 208.80 meters below sea level, which is the high-water mark. We haven’t been there since the great flood of Tiberias in 1934. So, we still have a way to go.

The rain has also brought out Israel’s storm chasers in droves. Jessica wrote about these hardy — or do I mean foolhardy? — folks two years ago. Since then, the popularity of driving 4x4s and jeeps into the desert or the mountains in search of rushing water has only increased, judging from the activity on the various storm chaser forums, chat groups and recently posted YouTube videos. Even the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) has gotten into the storm chaser act, offering hikes specially geared towards those with taste for flash. Er… flash floods, that is.

For those of us who’d rather chase storms from the comfort of a nice warm living room, here are a few recent clips, courtesy of the Israel Nature & Parks Authority.

Floods in the northern Dead Sea region – January 2012

Floods in the Carmel mountain range – Nahal Oron

Initial moments of a flood in Judean Desert dry river beds

And here’s a local news item from northern Israel, reporting on snow on Mount Hermon and flash floods in the Golan and Galilee.

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Foto Friday – Winter Wildflower Wonderland

February 3, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Travel 

I am not a great fan of rain and so this winter has been a particularly miserable one. Rain, rain, rain and more rain. However, even a sun worshiper such as myself can admit upside to the horrible, awful, gray, chilly, soggy, foggy, never-ending wet and damp: the landscape is green, the waterline at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) has risen and the winter wildflowers are coming into full bloom.

This month, Israel’s nature-lovers will take their annual trek through field and forest in search of their favorite flowers. The Society for the Preservation of Nature (SPNI) is hosting a series of tours in celebration of the season and the upcoming Tu b’Shvat holiday. As always, they will seek out the shy and elusive Persian Cyclamen…

Sara Gold - Persian CyclamenPhoto by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel

Fields dotted with blood red Crown Anemones are always a magnificent sight, but their light purple cousins are no less lovely…

Amikam Shoob - Crown AnemonePhoto by Amikam Shoob – Wildflowers of Israel

The Common Narcissus, whose fragrance is nothing if not controversial…

Sara Gold - Common NarcissusPhoto by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel

The elegant and stately Wild Hyacinth…

Sara Gold - Wild HyacinthPhoto by Sara Gold – Wildflowers of Israel

And of course, Tu b’Shvat wouldn’t be complete without the blossoming almond tree!

Mike Livne - Almond blossomPhoto by Mike Livne – Wildflowers of Israel

Aspiring nature photographers take note: Wildflowers in Israel, in conjunction with Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and FujiFilm, is holding a photo contest and there are still a few days left before the deadline closes on February 8. Information and a list of subjects (in Hebrew) is available here or submissions can be emailed directly.

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