I relish walking the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem. The city has a rich history filled with epic tales of triumph, sorrow, and loss. There is also a peace and a tension to Jerusalem that coexist, which you can see it in her on the faces of her residents and perhaps even in the rich textures that comprise her. She is a microcosm of our world even if she is but a small sliver of it.
Who says your images always have to be in focus, or that they can’t have blown out areas in them? This image is was shot on the move at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
I like the surreal nature of it and how it breaks just about every photography rule. Enjoy 🙂
![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s7MPCmDXWeU/Tn00Q9ERp-I/AAAAAAAAB0o/qtLd5fynmKU/s800/IMG_6566.jpg")
I wanted to highlight everyone hovering around near the entrance of the church. The effect you see was done in camera by zooming the lens as I pressed the shutter.
This was shot using a 24-70 2.8L at 2.8 1/30
As I’ve been working to prepare for the the The Bethlehem Christmas Project, I started thinking of some of the images I have collected over the years during my time on the ground. Some of them are poignant and some are whimsical like this one. I plan on posting a few here and there as we get closer to December.
The one you see here is of a camel at the Caves of Qumran (the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). At the time, I was shooting with a Rebel XTI and an EF 75-300 lens – that lens died on that trip. This is one of the last images I was able to shoot with it.
By the way, if you can zoom in, you will see flies on the camel and buzzing around him. The downsizing for getting this on the web obscures them to a certain degree, but they are there.
© Copyright Ali Elhajj 2014-2020
