Yardenit- the Jorden River

No words needed. This is the holy center. 

Here is the entrance.

 

Thanks for viewing

A well seen scene of males in a very holy place, may be Priests or Holly men of Jewish Faith? You show us many interesting details. Always been fascinated by the Jewish/Catholic connection. Jesus a Jewish man who change the world. One of my first books recommended by my therapist was The power tactics of Jesus Christ. By Jay Heally. It open my eyes to infenite posibilities of believe systems and that each one of us is a living God with the ability to create what ever the universe conspire, a religion, a new way, a planet, what ever we evolve to be capable of creating. Wonderful image for food for thought my friend. Warm regards.

A very nicely composed beautiful shot, Pnina!

 

Wonderful timing, Pnina, love the birds also. Abrazos. 

Thanks

Jorge, thanks for your nice impression,and your offere.The people in the water are a group of christians coming  from the far east  doing a  pilgrimage to this holy place, of the christian religion.( not the Jewish one) you were right about the historical connection,but this place is especially for christians.

 

Thanks as well for your offer, Iwanted to show the  ceremony in general with its surrounding of the river.

 

Ruud and Mari thanks both of you,I will upload another part of the entrance..

Great composition, Pnina. Not only is the spiral of the rails a nice opening for the the group of men, but the circle of the men is just perfect, with the main light on the guy furthest away. All very good. The change of tonality of colors of the background is adding to the quality of it all. 

One small questioning could be made to the straightening of the scene so that the rails are vertical. The men are in fact going out of the deeper water to the right.

Best regards Pnina!

 

PDE

 Anders, thanks , I'm glad you liked it ,and commented. Your  offer is probably right, but standing quite far and with a  high camera  point, as well as wanted the birds ... well here is another one.

 

Pierre, thanks as well!

 

Pnina, it is more straight, but in my eyes less good than the previous.

Here is a tiny bit corrected.. do you think it is better? 

I like this picture quite a bit. The composition is good and it has a strong center of interest. I agree with Anders about the correction of the tilt. In my version, I used the transform tool and used the distort command to just straighten out the left side then pulled it back to the edge with the scale command. This way the space to the right was not lost and the three birds kept their breathing room.

I suppose I'm going to interpret this differently from most of your viewers, and apply my own overlay of prejudice and humor. I found it immensely humorous. These people engaging in nonsensical behavior while being watched and joined by those feathered fellows (birdbrains?) who surely must be equally amused by the bizarre behavior of the homo sapiens. Thank you for bringing to our attention the incredibly strange behaviors one can observe on planet earth.

Yes, Pnina, your corrections of the tilt works well now, and maybe Jacks even better because of the "breathing space" he mentions.

Jack, thanks for your offer , you were right about the birds space, but at least on my screen it is a bit too bright .Anyway always tell me your real impression!

 

Dave, you made me smile ! as we were discussing the issue time and again...;-)),but this corner of the Jordan river is holy for the christians belivers,and one thing about ISRAEL: the country respects all the 3 religions, what we can not say  about  our neighbors.....

 

Anders, thanks for your folllow up! thats the way to grow.!

That's strange because I didn't adjust the brightness at all, just straightened the picture. Another of life's little mysteries.

Just a question about the birds. In my eyes, one of the challenges of photography is not to overload the frame with too many competing points of attention. I'm all for birds, but I'm not sure including these birds within the frame makes the shot better. I would clearly have preferred the scene without the birds challenging my attention, so that the spiral can play its full role in the composition.

Jus my point of view, with no intention of proposing to chase the birds away.

 

Thanks for your follow up.

Anders,  let me explain the situation.The birds are all over the place, they are used to people..I  wanted to single the group in the water.I was standing on the upper part of the place using  my 70-200  lens looking down. On the  RHS  of the water line were many people partly with thier legs in the water, many photographers ( my sister as well, that said later on that  it was impossible  to photo the group)..on the LHS were the birds (impossible to get ride of them. What was rest for me was to choose... and I have chosen the bird's side...;-))

The 10 minute disaster ! should be the  LHS(with the peple) the RHS with the birds...( I think it is the first change we have to ask the new managment!...;-))

Pnina, thanks for your explanation. I'm sure you are right that the scene was what it was and little to do to change it. The birds are part of that scene, surely. My comment was mainly from an image and composition point of view, and clearly only related to what I see as a more optimal scene. 

Thanks for your follow up, and you are right of course. We see what we see, and not always there is an explanation.! ;-))

I like Dave's take on this photo. :-)

 

My own is that I'd like to feel more intimacy to the group of people in the water. While the railing and birds make for a nice graphic interest, they are just that, photo-graphic texture that, to me, doesn't add to the emotion of the image. It actually feels like a distancing mechanism, preventing the photographer and viewer from actually empathizing and feeling what's really going on here. They are being observed and placed rather than understood or known.

 

Thanks again, it was taken from a real distance,I was standing at the renterance which is a high point ,and even using my 70-200 lens it was hard to see their faces, going down to the river is very steep, as well as usually (i was told)the ceremony entering the river is done with a prist, which this time, was not present.

Dave's comment was really funny and to the point.. ;-))

 

Another point are the birds ,tone of them( probably fish in the water) very hard to avoid...

 

But Fred, for me it was a documentary photo, just to show that Israel is tolerant to all religions.

I have photographed and uploaded  the enrterance gate,thats   why...;-))