China
So I spent 2 weeks in Beijing, Shanghai, Macao and Hong-Kong.
I spent another week trying to sort out the 1500 pictures and select the ones I want to post here. I came up with 10 I felt like sharing here. Here they are:
Part of my legs hanging over part of the great wall. It was freezing cold (I’m not that accustomed to snow anymore) but the clear sky offered good visibility. I visited the wall a day before they closed it down for Obama, so I didn’t miss out on one of the world’s great wonders. Following is a picture of a woman selling whatever in the Summer Palace:
From Beijing I continued to Shanghai where I met up with a friend. Slightly warmer there, but the visibility was terrible. Foggy sky throughout my stay there. Above is the best I managed to produce of the river side view that no Shanghai picture collection would be complete without. Below, a photo of a man practicing his symbols on the park’s path using water, slowly fading away:
Here we have a photo of a small alley (above) and a kid (below, even though I’m stating the obvious here), just before he offered me the gummy snake he is holding:
For the next 3 photos, I remembered to try and play a bit with some long exposure. Since I didn’t quite carry a tripod with me, I tried to place the camera each time on a table, garbage bin or anything somewhat stable and hold it steady while I take the 2 second photo. The results are actually not that bad. So here we have a Shanghai major street, the Venetian Hotel in Macao and Hong Kong’s river side view, just before the light show (which was very boring and hardly worth the wait actually) started:
I’ll conclude with another mandatory picture of Hong Kong from the Peak:
All in all, this has been an amazing vacation. This is my first visit to China. And I know I’ve only seen it’s (amazing) urban side, missing out on many things this place has to offer, but I’ve experienced a new culture – and quite liked it.
Lastly, I will use this opportunity to introduce Lucille 2 (not sure of the name yet…), my brand new Canon 50D. She was purchased on my final day in Hong Kong, so actually you still can’t see any photos taken with her. But I promise good things will be arriving soon…
Going to China
Sorry, no photos here today.
I’m going to China Tomorrow. Flying off to Beijing, continuing to Shanghai and concluding the trip in Hong Kong, two weeks later. Yahoo Weather suggests sunny yet cold (4° C) weather upon my arrival. Should be fun. See you on the other side…
Cupcakes(.co.il)
About five months ago, Efrat calls me up and convinces me to leave work early, so I can photograph a friend of hers for some fashion blog. This was the first time I met Ofer. That “Hippo Days” post in her blog was the first of many.
Happy Hippos - Behind the scenes
BTW – why didn’t anybody tell me that this is how I look when I photograph?
After almost a month, I decided I wanted in on the action. Ofer has suggested it to me several times, but it was only on July 5th when my first blog post has seen the light of day. After all, it took me a while to setup Wordpress, select a theme, find the plug-ins I wanted, select a name for the blog, create a logo (easy – I can’t design – so there isn’t one) and figure out what I wanted to write about. My initial plan was try and learn all those things photographers are supposed to know, and try to share my findings with others in the process. So I’ve written several tutorials, but the last of them was “published” two months ago. Since then, I found myself adding photos I took which I want to share. I’m really happy with what I came up with so far.
And during all this time, I’m still taking photos of Ofer for Cupcakes.co.il, my favorites (some never shown in her site!) are shown here:
 Ofer - A Colourful Summer |
 Ofer - Onot Maavar |
 Ofer - Going Under |
 Ofer - Not all that glitters is gold |
If you made it this far, I’ll share another small thing with you: I’ve decided on trying to write Haiku poems. This is my first attempt:
Squill of autumn late
Blooms free
As far as my eyes can see
Thanks for listening 
Acoustic Heroes
Everything starts somewhere.
Usually it starts small. An idea. A conversation. A meeting. A gathering of several people with all the Guitar Hero equipment (except for a PS3, TV, amplifiers or anything which produces sounds other than their vocal chords) performing in the middle of the street.
It sounded like it could be a really cool thing to see, or daft as hell. So last Friday we went down to Rothschild avenue to see to the first Acoustic Heroes show, so we can judge for ourselves.
Acoustic Heroes Concert
It seemed like a nice chance to let my camera out for some fresh air (as well as also holding a Nikon in my hand for the first time in my life). But as it turned out, we (that means Efrat and Danna) did a little more than just judge. Having to make up for no sound guitars and hardly heard drums, the singers had to work harder. And with no playlist, there were several “so what shall we sing now?” pauses (with occasional suggestions from the viewers).
Acoustic Heroes - Making money
As you can see, entertaining the public can help you raise money. I think enough was made to cover the parking costs.
For more info on this experience (plus a video!), visit Ironia and Ehudk.com.
Acoustic Heroine
All in all, I had fun. And I can’t wait for the next show.