Bowl of Choices

Pick one.

You might recall that I had an incident with my Canon G12 last month.  If you missed it, no big deal.  I didn’t make a big deal out of it.  Stuff happens.

Short story shorter – it didn’t like being dropped.  Everything appeared to function, but no image would show on the screen (although the menus and overlays displayed just fine).  So I snapped a few pictures and ended up with black screens.  Something was clearly knocked loose.

So before we plunked out money on a replacement (I like the G12 enough as a pocket camera that I’d buy another one), I decided to send it in to Canon to get an estimate on repairs.  Drops are not covered under warranty and I was clear that it was a drop, so there was no doubt for them what happened.

Two weeks after they received it, it was on its way back.

No charge.

Covered under warranty.

Beautiful!

But I’ll admit, a tiny bit of my brain was hoping that it was going to be an expensive fix.  Especially once Canon announced the soon-to-be released G1x:

Same form factor as the G12, but rocking an almost APS-C sized CMOS sensor.

As we walked our way through a shopping district, stopping to share smokes with a photogenic guy, on our way to an extremely busy market full of a city getting ready for the Sabbath, we stumbled across this scene.

The two gentlemen on the right of the image are Haredi, otherwise known as Ultra-Orthodox Jews.  They were likely walking down the street when they were approached by the man on the left.  While we have no idea how the conversation began, it progressed to this point where the gentleman to the left asked for their help in prayer.

The Haredi carry Phylacteries, also knows as Telfillin, which contain small scrolls of Torah verses.  The scrolls are held within boxes that are strapped to the left arm and head, which you can see on the gentleman to the left.  Click on the links to read more about them at Wikipedia, plus see some interesting photos.

Once the Telfillin were placed, the two gentlemen stood quietly by while the third prayed vigorously, in his own world, surrounded by a bustling city.

Less than ten minutes later, the two Haredi  were on their way, having taken a small part of their day to help a brother reconnect.

Dead Dusk

After spending the afternoon wandering the grounds of Masada, Shimon rushed us south to get to some salt pillars on the Dead Sea before sunset.  We lost the race, but still had a few minutes on the banks to take some interesting shots.

This was my favorite of the bunch.

And it caused quite a bit of discussion amongst Shimon and I on my technique.  But I won’t bore you with the details here.

And for a very nice post by Shimon on the Dead Sea, including pictures he took while I took this one, browse here.

For those that are geographically challenged, the mountains in the distance on the right are in Jordan, in the distance on the left are in Israel.  That means we’re looking north in this picture.

Dead Flight

Looking east, across the Dead Sea from Israel into Jordan.

I do love when birds purposefully place themselves in my shot just to add that little bit of light to the image.

Imagine the stories those faces have to tell.

Muslim Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem, Israel.

And a fun day to keep slipping in the mud.  A week ago the Rhein River was quite high on its banks.  Not so much this week, but the mud hasn’t had a chance to dry.  And it’s very, very slickery.

Or any other thing that involved being outside.