Back. Phew.

Due to some kind of technical snafu blogger went down in Europe (including Israel) for over NINE hours today. Nine hours during which my blog and every other blogspot blog disappeared into the black hole of Google's "link not found" page.

Nothing like a major outtage to drive home how very important your blog is to you, and how much of an idiot you are for not backing it up until now...

Breathe, Robin, breathe.

Playing around with textures

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Help, I've fallen into a black hole and I'm not sure when I'll be coming back up for air. I've started playing around with textures and with my addictive personality it's rapidly bypassing hobby and veering off towards obsession. There's a bit of a learning curve as I both figure out how it all works and what I like from an artistic point of view, but I'm really enjoying the process and the end result so far isn't half bad.
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Here are a few of my early attempts. These are just a jumping off point for me as I experiment and learn.
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Are any of you working with textures? I'd love to see them and trade ideas, and if there's enough interest maybe even start up a new textures photoproject. Now that Summer Stock is on hiatus the weekends are available again.
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Click each image for a better look at the textures.
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Whoops, I've got a crisis over a broken ceramic fairy. Gotta run...

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Where the fairies live

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And it's got a door, too. (Of course it does, how else would they get in?)
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The party was a smashing success, the birthday girl was thrilled, but I'm utterly shattered and still have a late night conference call with California to get through so the cake will have to do it for tonight. I'm not even looking at the actual party photos until tomorrow. (Excuse the shiny flash reflection, all the natural lighting shots came out strangely discolored. I think all the beige in my kitchen was throwing off the white balance or something but I was too busy to take the time to sort it out.)
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Have a great rest of the day everyone. I'll be by to visit tomorrow.
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Silence

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Thank goodness for Wordless Wednesday, because I'm waist-deep in preparations for Maya's birthday Wednesday afternoon and don't have the time to even think of writing an actual post.
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On the other hand, if you come back on Thursday I will hopefully be able to offer you photos of a very cute (please please please let this work) Fairy House birthday cake.
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In the meantime I'll be fantasizing about this tranquil, silent spot as I race around like a headless chicken, surrounded by chaos and astronomical levels of noise.
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Skiffs at Dusk

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I was really taken by the quiet tranquillity of this scene, so different at dusk from the mad rushing about I imagine takes place at dawn when the skiffs rush their owners to their boats which lie further out at anchor. Not having actually been there at dawn I can't be sure that any of this is true, perhaps it's all my own fanciful read on the situation, but if you know differently keep it to yourself, I like my version.
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And once you're done here, why don't you go visit Mary the Teach, our illustrious host for Ruby Tuesday, with its reds both subtle and bold.
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Muristan Fountain

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The Muristan Fountain, in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, is a strange sight. Plunked down smack dab in the midst of a colorful and crowded Old City Market it doesn't look like it quite belongs - not among the market stalls, and even less to itself. With each of the fountain's elements in a different, competing style (or as my Yiddish-speaking grandmother would have called it "ungapatchka'd") none of which give any credence at all to a understanding of proportion, it looks, to my eye, like nothing more than a set of children's toys set down and forgotten mid-play by some long-gone giant child, especially when viewed from the vantage point of the delightful rooftop cafe above, where this photo was taken.
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The fountain is not listed in many guidebooks, mine included, but I finally found it online as a stop on an Old City walking tour (click on the word fountain or scroll down about two-thirds of the way). According to that website:
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"A grand fountain (and here I have to question the use of the word grand - tall, perhaps, but to my way of thinking it's hardly the Trevi Fountain of Rome, and that center piece looks remarkably like an oversized candlestick that my mother-in-law had) was designed in the center of the market, honoring the Sultan Abed al-Hamid II (1876–1909) [on his] reign of 25 years. It was constructed in 1903 in the newly designed market."
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder though, and while I have trouble locating this one's beauty I'm sure someone else finds it utterly enchanting.
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Visit Monochrome Weekly for more black and white images.
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Scenes from a sunset

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Or rather one scene, three times. I couldn't make up my mind which way I liked it - darker and moody or more realistic looking - so you get all three and can decide for yourselves.
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I shot this last weekend along Israel's Mediterranean coast just above a gorgeous beach combining both sandy and tidepools and accessible only via a path steep and narrow enough to keep the riffraff down to manageable levels. It was our first trip to this particular beach but it certainly won't be our last - especially if we get another swing season heat wave like last week's sharav!
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Straight out of the camera - fairly dark and moody

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With minor color adjustments only

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And finally with the same color adjustments and the cliff top lightened up a bit

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Click any image to enlarge

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So which one gets your vote?

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Visit Skywatch Friday for more skies from around the world.

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Because things were getting too sticky sweet around here

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Now don't get me wrong, I love beautiful photos of exotic animals as much as the next person, especially ones as sweet as this one or as wild looking as this one or this one, but lets face it, there have been a lot of animals around here lately. Too many animals. (Obviously my last big photo excursion was to the zoo. It was a great success imagewise but it's time for some variety. This city kid was starting to twitch. )
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Enter the illustrious Mary the Teach to the rescue. She decided, and just in time, too, that her Window Views project can now include doors as well, and what do you know, I just happen to have a few of those kicking around in the ol' archives. I have plenty of windows too, but what can I say, I'm feeling the need to live on the edge a little - not a window, not even a door, but rather a doorframe - a mere fragment of a door. Because that rebellious make it my own streak is still alive and well around the old island. (Dear god I've gotten old if simply choosing a slightly off-centered photo is considered rebellion - what happened to all those late nights, sneaking out of my house to go get into whole heaps of trouble meet up with my friends? Now I'm content to rebel by posting an image of a doorframe. Sheesh. At least it's a slightly gritty, graffitied one. Maybe there's hope for me after all. (Then again, maybe not.) I think one day soon I'll have to play hooky and do another serious photowalk around Tel Aviv and feed the muse before she abandons me completely. Anyone want to join me?)
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Though now that I look at it, even my supposed gritty door has a series of cute little hearts on it. Ack! I can't get away! The cute, it's winning! Send help! Send me locations of rusty metal, of rotting wood, of old junk, anything for a break from the cute. I'm doomed, doomed I tell you. Next thing you know my blog sidebar is going to fill up with sparkles and unicorns.
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Slinking away to go cry in my not at all edgy Coke Zero now...
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Oh yeah, and here's the photo. Is anyone even still reading this far down?
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Click to enlarge (and just so we're clear - this isn't my door - mine is much more boring)

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PS I'm also trying to reawaken the writing portion of my brain, the one that used to have the upper hand on this blog, and then to convince it to play nicely with the photography side. What do you think? Is it working?
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Tandem nursing taken to a whole new level

Taken at the Safari last week (or was it the week before?). Click to enlarge.

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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what else people aren't saying.

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Foghorn Leghorn Goes to the Zoo

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I always find it mildly amusing to see chickens and roosters running around the Safari like some kind of exotic animal. This guy was so clearly mugging for the camera that I couldn't help but think of his outspoken cartoon counterpart.
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More ruby red goodness can be found, as always, over at Mary's a bit later this evening.
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Loons

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Going for another natural monochrome this week, loons this time, on a lake very near the spot which inspired the mythical Golden Pond of On Golden Pond fame. I just love loons, I could watch them for hours. This particular shot was taken a year ago but I was lucky enough this summer to be able to get within just a few feet of one when it surfaced right in front of my kayak, what a magical moment.
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Visit Monochrome Weekly for more black and white images from around the world.
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Wait, is it good battery positive, then bad battery positive, then which one negative?!?

As you may have guessed from that cryptic-sounding title, my recent adventures have included jump-starting, or rather attempting to jump-start, a car.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

First, there were the dinosaurs... (two utterly useless imaginary trivia points to anyone who gets the reference)

Okay, jumping a head a few years, give or take a couple of million, last night Mimi of Israeli Kitchen (soon to be retitled Aardvark in the Israeli Kitchen for SEO optimization and a plethora of dramatic possibilities) and Hannah of A Mother in Israel and her newest project Cooking Manager hosted a really lovely meetup of central Israel (English-speaking, or rather blogging) bloggers. It was great fun to meet everyone and put names and faces to a bunch of really great local blogs (see Hannah's post for a full list of participants). We spent a very enjoyable evening getting to know each other and munching on Mimi's delicious noshes and before we knew it it was after 11 o'clock and time to head for home.

*cue dramatic music*

Several of us headed out together to do a quick contraband white powder organic stone-ground flour deal in the parking lot. Goods in hand we said our goodbyes and prepared to head out, only to discover that Kate's brand new-to-her car wouldn't start! And that's when the real fun started - have you ever seen three women with dare I say minimal mechanical abilities prepare to jumpstart a car? Between Kate, Baila who'd ridden in with her, and I we knew exactly this about jumping cars: first step, find cables. Check. Second step, connect them. Aack, which one goes first? I have no idea, but I know that Bad Things will occur if the cables are connected wrong. Third thing, find car manual and look up "jumping a dead battery". Fourth thing, try to make sense out of the diagram in the faint light of the headlights. Fifth thing, try to do the jump. Connect all the cables but the last negative one. Sixth thing, connect that last cable. See sparks fly. Commence yelling and slight panicking. Okay, check. Got that one too.

Things went on in this vein for a while. We eventually got help from Baroness Tapuzina and her husband Michael who lent us better cables and kept us from getting electrocuted, only to have the car die again when Kate attempted to put it into reverse and drive away.

14th thing. (Are you sensing that we were in this for a while?) Flag down a passing stranger in the now-deserted parking lot and borrow his cables. Restart engine. Let it rev for a while. Then watch it die, completely, again, when it's time to drive away.

We finally managed to get the battery going enough to close the power windows and decided it was time to throw in the towel and leave it for the morning. I dropped Kate and Baila off at the airport to catch a taxi home to Modiin and headed back home myself, tired but with plenty of new blog fodder ;).

Besides, the whole thing was really my fault for tempting fate. After all these years I of all people should know that you never break the cardinal rule of leaving.

Never, ever, EVER, not even once, leave without hitting the bathroom first, even if you're "just driving a few minutes down the road". Forgoing that crucial last chance is tempting the fates well beyond the limits of their endurance and pretty much a guarantee that some kind of catastrophe is about to befall you.

Sorry Kate, next time I will for sure go to the bathroom before I leave. I promise.

Dusty Window

Caught in Tel Aviv a while back

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Forgive me if I'm slow answering comments lately, I'm actually reading a book! An actual book. With pages. A whole series of them in fact. I was looking for something to read about two weeks ago and on a whim decided to reread Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander (yes, of Russell Crowe fame, but the movie is actually drawn from a number of different volumes of the series, leading to some confusion as I reread them), but of course O'Brian cleverly ends each volume with the lead-in to the next installment in the series and before I knew it one thing had led to another and I'm now on the 13th book in the 21-volume series. Happily (but impractically) we already owned them all so there has been nothing to stop me from racing helter-skelter from one to the other. I remembered just enough from my first read years ago to entice me ahead, not enough to allow me the rest that comes from knowing what's ahead.

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I so rarely take the time to completely immerse myself in a really good story these days, I'd forgotten how much I love it, and how overwhelmingly consuming it becomes.

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So, what has consumed you lately? Where has your passion taken you?

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Not another ugly duckling

Actually, he's a crowned crane. Click to enlarge for the full effect.

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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying this week.

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Happy Birthday Miss Mouse

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Six years ago tomorrow (Tuesday) our Miss Maya Mouse made one hell of a dramatic entrance, right there in the back seat of my car in the taxi stand of the local hospital, followed by an ever-so-delightful life-threatening episode of polycythemia and several days in the NICU (caused by the hospital staff's panic at her birth, but that's a story for another day, or perhaps another year - she's fine now but I still have some processing to do before I can put it all down on paper), and ever since she's been setting her own agenda.

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Her path has had more twists and turns than most but she's reaching for the stars, climbing higher and higher each year and taking our hearts, and our breath, away right along with her.

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Happy birthday beautiful girl, mommy loves you all the way up until space.

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The obvious choice

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For Monochrome Weekly that is.
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Yes, a bit kitsch but you have to admit it that this handsome fellow (at least I think he's a fellow, I didn't actually check), a resident of the Ramat Gan Safari, is a natural for monochrome.
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This shot was taken out the open window of our car as we left the park yesterday afternoon. The light was fading fast (have I mentioned that I really hate fall and the end of daylight savings time?) so I bumped up the ISO to 800 to grab a few quick images on the way out.
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Sky? What sky?

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This scene struck me enough that I had to photograph it - two people, with lawn chairs and their morning coffee, sitting above the water and looking out intently - at fog so thick that both water and sky were utterly invisible. I haven't the faintest idea what held them so spellbound, I couldn't see anything at all, just an overwhelming whiteness so thick you could practically hold it in your hand.
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Visit Skywatch Friday for more skies from around the world.
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Last trip to the pool

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It's no secret that I'm no great fan of fall so in typical Robin and co style we did our best to wring out every last drop of summertime we could, including one last trip to the pool before it closes for the season. And yes, before you ask, she does have to wear that bathing cap - they're standard here in public pools for anyone with long hair (unless you're a mom with her hair up and sunglasses on and so not visibly "swimming", then they let it slide to avoid a mass revolt).
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Hard to believe that this was just a few days ago - it's now pouring out and fall seems to have arrived in all it's soggy glory.
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Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying this week.
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Hibiscus

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Last Friday we snuck in what may be the final trip to the pool of the season before it closes for the season at the end of this week. Knowing that it would be almost deserted (despite the still hot daytime temperatures no one ever seems to come once school starts) I brought along my camera to grab some last shots of the kids (check back tomorrow for a few of those). After I was done shooting them I wandered around a bit and caught this hibiscus blooming along a fence.
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Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ruby red images.
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Low tide

Seawall, Acadia National Park (click to enlarge)

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I really have to get out shooting more. While I do have still hundreds of shots from this summer to show you all it would be nice to have more recent material to intersperse with them, not to mention the good it would do to my psyche to answer the muse's incessant call and get out there, camera in hand.

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Soon. Very soon.

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More black and white images can be found at Monochrome Weekly.

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The Wanderbird at Sea

Hurray, it's fixed (my broken blog that is)!

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I can't really place what I love so much about this image, but I think more than anything it's its theatrical quality, the way the crew seem almost like actors playing a scene against a sky blue enough to look like painted (enlarge the photo to really see what I mean). I'm not enough of a sailor to know whether they were coming in or going out, but whatever they were doing they were clearly enjoying every moment.

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Visit Skywatch Friday for more skies from around the world.

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