Foto Friday – Marco Jona’s borderless birds

February 4, 2011 - 6:30 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: coexistence, education, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Science, Social Justice, Travel 

This dignified feathered fellow is an Egyptian vulture as captured by photographer Marco Jona who has a passion for nature photography, in particular the migrating birds who pass through our region twice each year.

Bird migration is one area where Israel and her neighbors have had excellent success cooperating on tracking and research. A study, Birds As Peacemakers in the Middle East, the culmination of 15 years of research was released in 2010 and it is well worth reading.

The project got underway in 1996 as research cooperation between the German Ministry of the Environment, the Max Planck Institute, Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI). Israel’s Ministry of Education set up a website – www.birds.org.il — for schoolchildren to learn about the project, which initially outfitted 120 migrating White Storks on their path from Germany to Africa.

The first phase of the project, entitled “Migrating Birds Know No Borders”, widened the original initiative to include training Palestinian and Jordanian bird ringers, along with educational activities. It was funded by USAID-MERC and led by the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, established by the SPNI and TAU, the Paletine Wildlife Society and Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature in Jordan.

The European Union joined in the second phase, “For Birds and People in the Jordan Valley”, which developed three field stations in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. But the most extensive project, initiated in 2002, researched the use of barn owls and kestrels as biological pest controllers in agriculture; 200 nesting boxes have been erected in Israel, about 200 in Jordan and 200 are being set up in the PA with plans for another 800 there.

“We feel that the greatest achievement is that the subject of birds that ‘know no boundaries’ has succeeded in building a significant bridge in this war-torn region: teachers and pupils, conservationists, birdwatchers, academic researchers, farmers, people concerned with flight safety and the general public.”

The scientific results of the project — including satellite tracking, research on the effect on radar on bird migration, monitoring of migration by recording bird calls and more — are summarized in the report, as well as a 10-year outlook for what it hopes to do next.

As unrest in the Middle Eastern continues, we can only hope that this regional cooperation can continue spreading word about its good work — making stories like the so-called “Mossad vulture” arrested in Saudi Arabia for being an Israeli spy — a thing of the past. (PS: The charges were false and the accused released). At the very least, it should allow nature lovers like Marco Jona to keep on making captivating images like these.

Short-toed eagle

Barn owl

Pied kingfisher

Long-eared owl

White-throated kingfisher

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Foto Friday – Local Testimony 2010

December 17, 2010 - 3:10 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, design, education, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Picture of the Week, Politics, Pop Culture, Travel, War 

Local Testimony, the country’s largest and most prestigious annual exhibition of international and Israeli press photography, opened this month at the Eretz Israel Museum.


Photo: Mohammed Muheisen, Daily Life category

The exhibit presents images from the past year of war and peace, politics and society, culture and art, nature and the environment, sports, portraiture, multimedia presentations and more.


Photo: Shlomi Nissim, Nature category

The exhibit also includes a special focus on the work of its curator, photographer Galia Gur-Zeev, who notes, “As the curator of Local Testimony 2010, I regard this as a chance to compare this year’s photos with those of previous years that deal with the same topic.”


Photo: Rina Castelnovo, Politics category

“Press photos always appear together with a mediating text which imposes meaning and interpretation that are not free of manipulation. Separating a photo from the text enables freedom from verbal linearity and a transition to the photograph’s timelessness.”


Photo: Amir Cohen, Daily Life category

“Now, the documentary photo is open to new observation, new interpretation, and the suspension of our gaze.”


Photo: Moti Milrod, Portrait category

Local Testimony runs through January 15, 2011, and is open till 10:00pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

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Foto Friday – 9/11 Living Memorial

September 10, 2010 - 10:16 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Picture of the Week, Politics, War 

With the somber anniversary of 9/11 approaching, it is fitting to call attention to Jerusalem memorial erected to mark the event and its fallen.

The memorial is literally off the beaten path, situated outside Jerusalem on a road that isn’t yet completed or well-marked. You basically get off Highway 1 at Motza, start heading towards Mevasseret Zion and then veer off on an unpaved road towards Emek HaArazim. A short drive brings visitors to the JNF-KKL Arazim Park and the Bronka Stavsky Rabin Weintraub Living Memorial Plaza.


© Pes & Lev, JerusalemShots

The 30-foot bronze sculpture by artist Eliezer Weisshoff represents an American flag that gradually turns into a memorial flame. It rests on a base of granite brought over from the Twin Towers and is the only memorial site outside New York on which are engraved the names of all those killed. The sculpture was created with the purpose of expressing the event simply and symbolically without the use of elements of destruction, loss and ruin.

Some more excellent images of the 9/11 Memorial by photographer Hanan Isachar are available on his website. And a video of last year’s dedication ceremony has been posted on the US Embassy Tel Aviv YouTube channel. Take a moment to watch and reflect.

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Foto Friday – Drora Spitz

September 3, 2010 - 5:06 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, design, education, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Profiles, Technology, Travel 

Photographer Drora Spitz is one of Israel’s leading lights in the field of artistic and architectural photography. Since 1972, her art works have been presented at museums and galleries in Israel, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK. Between 1978-2004, Spitz was director of the Department of Photography at the Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning & Design at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where she also taught photography.

Last week marked another high point in her career: the launch of a book, LIGHT SPACE TIME, which showcases selected works from the past forty years.

Spitz is fascinated by structures and spaces, whether monumental or minute. She chronicled the Sinai desert throughout the 1960s and 70s and the first chapter presents its primordial scenery and diverse populations. Also at that time, she followed the late Israeli sculptor Itzhak Danziger, documenting his conceptual experiments with landscape. (More about Danziger’s work here).

It was during the 70s, while undertaking complicated lab experiments, that Spitz says she invented processes which preceded digital photography. Today, she states, digital technology aids her in interpreting reality in new, conceptual ways. Her recent works, Paper Landscapes, are photos that are deconstructed and then reconstructed, digitally redrawn in bold colors and reproduced in multiple.

The photographs presented today are from the series Light in the Mirror Of Time documenting a Bible handed down through Spitz’s family for 300 years. Spitz’s architectural sensibility transforms pages, thickened by years of use, into geological strata, reflective oases and fantastic land formations.

The book LIGHT SPACE TIME Drora Spitz Photographs 1968-2009 is available for sale at the museum stores of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Haifa Museum of Art; the Tel-Hai Open Photography Museum; as well as at Yudan bookstores in Haifa and Zichron Yaacov; and via internet order. Cost: NIS 195 including VAT and shipping (in Israel).

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Foto Friday – Elyssa Frank has a TLV secret

May 28, 2010 - 7:45 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Life, Sports, Travel 

Photographer Elyssa Frank is passionate about Tel Aviv. You can tell from the albums she posts on her Facebook page MADE in ISRAEL. A few days ago, before the dust storms hit and our skies turned yellowy-white, Frank took a stroll somewhere.

Frank likens the expanse of mossy rocks and sea to the Irish countryside… Mediterranean-style.

And through her lens, the shells that wash up on the shore become jewels…

The album is entitled “Someone shared a beautiful secret with me…” and Frank won’t disclose the location. But it’s easy to spot a few landmarks, like the old lighthouse… and the running path by the Israel Electric Corporation’s Reading power station pretty much gives it away!

Nonetheless, it’s nice to know that between the dance clubs, restaurants and sports facilities there are a few quiet spots left at the Tel Aviv Port.

More of Frank’s street photography is available on her MADE in ISRAEL page (check out the series on the headphone street party that took place last weekend). Portfolio collection viewings available upon request.

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