the Hula Valley, a photo from Kinneret, Northern

Photographer's Note

After about half an hour drive from where the previous photo was taken, we arrived at the Hula reservoir.

The Hula Reservoir is a relic of the Hula Lake and surrounding swamp area, spanning on about 25000 acres. In 1951 the National Jewish Fund decided to drain the lake and swamps in order to combat malaria and create more areas for agricultural activity. The drainage process was finally completed in 1958, leaving only 800 acres of wet land.
In 1993 JNF returned to the Hula Valley at the head of a large-scale, environmental rehabilitation program, making the swamp a reservoir, and a haven to migrating birds and other swamp creatures (sorry, no gators here...). Autumn, the main migration period, sees the mass arrival of pelicans, herons, storks, cranes, birds of prey etc. Some 25,000 cranes alone arrive in the autumn and some 10,000 spend the winter there.
Nowadays, an additional area is being swamp in order to facilitate more birds and animals.
There is a beautiful 1.5 KM trail around the reservoir, from which I will bring you photos over the next days. This photo was taken at the beginning of the trail, showing some of the swamp area, the surrounding mountains and one heron that was reluctant to stay and pose for me.

cgrindahl, tuffellow, elroyie, nwoehnl, Pompey, bertolucci, digi-mom, burdallet, Jeppe, Roly, apazevedo, ChrisJ, premels ha contrassegnato questa nota come utile

Critiques | Translate

tuffellow (546) 2004-07-26 2:15

Very nice shot, Liora. Textbook usage of the rule of 1/3s. It might have been a little more complete if you had included the tops of the branches on the left and the bottom of the reflection of the reeds on the right. Too bad the heron took off, but you did a good job of capturing it against the dark green background, which draws attention to it. Well done.
Mike

elroyie (2750) 2004-07-26 3:23

Nice composition with very good background of Ramat Hagolan mountains, it is indeed a beautiful place, very good note (much better than mine on the same place), the heron in the air is little but seen.

centurion (0) 2004-07-26 5:03

Nice picture and composition Liora, but I would like it with more sharpness. No tripod ?

nwoehnl (122) 2004-07-26 13:09

A fine outdoor shot, Liora. Good viewpoint to render some nice reflections off the surface of the body of water, and good natural colors. A pity the heron took off but seeing him fly towards the back is not too bad either ;-) The hazy view towards the hill in the back seems to indicate it was quite a hot day. Well done, and great job on the note.

Pompey (1117) 2004-07-26 15:42

Wonderful photo Liora, the stillness and colours of the water contrast with the harsh background.
Pity Mr Heron decided to fly, but you really can't rely on them to pose.
Well spotted!

bertolucci (14052) 2004-07-27 4:53

Nice deep capture Liora, again with a fine contrast, this time between the lush vegatation of the swamp and the hazy hills in the back. The swamp as main object is rendered nicely and acts as an intermediar between the two - good compo. It's indeed a pitty that the heron was far away - but him flying to the mountains points us furher into the pic. Fine job.

jiherka (4552) 2004-07-27 16:36

Very nice river and landscape. The contrast between the first plan green,and the hill on the background that are burned by the sun is beautiful.

cgrindahl (6113) 2004-07-28 1:06

I read your note to Norbert expressing your dissatisfaction with your camera, but I will observe with him that very hot weather such as you experienced here greatly diminishes photo quality especially at a distance. You are caught on the horns of a dilemma since the more saturated foreground contrasts so strongly with the distance haze. It is a challenge to work with conventional levels adjustment since to solve one problem you create another. I tried a workshop applying Shadows and Highlights from Photoshop CS and I believe it helped. See what you think.

[workshop] [compare] +

mitch66 (150) 2004-08-01 13:24

Agree with tuffellow, very nice shot. It would have been better with more DOF though.

burdallet (0) 2004-08-08 11:37

Water / Desret , taste Oasis :-) good light
"Bonne lumière"

Jeppe (18654) 2004-08-15 15:19

Very fine moody shot Liora - I like the soft colours and the great reflections - the white bird makes the shot perfect.

Roly (2024) 2004-08-16 21:15

Nicely composed image, unfortunately not very sharp. In case you didn't use a tripod, this might be the reason. With the thin haze a polarizing filter could help a bit. I like the frozen heron, it brings a point of interest where it's needed.

apazevedo (5469) 2004-08-18 17:11 [Comment]