Freddie the Mantis

This week I have just a few pictures, which I have already uploaded (these were taken in September last year). I had shot these when I was travelling with National Geographic in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.

No, actually it was in my living room (on the basil plant, where it had really good camouflage). We named it Freddie (after the Elm street murderer) and I really wanted to keep it... only it turned out that mantises (mantii?) tend to get aggressive when you poke a lens and flash at them...

I did always want to take pictures of bugs with all the right equipment: macro lens, flash and tripod. I just never happen to have these things around when I see some interesting critters. Since Freddie was kind enough to come to my own living room, I made a few good shots before he started climbing the camera and jumping me (he was about half an inch tall, but really aggressive! ).

Non the WISer...?

This week was the last exam of the semester. Finishing my first year as graduate at Weizmann Institute of Science was long and tedious work, but I can honestly say I had learned a lot. Example: when to turn an image into monochrome. How to do star trails with other bright objects in the frame. Stuff like that. A little bit of physics too. No optics courses, thank god!
Those are remarkably boring, usually. The only time when I had actually liked optics is when I realized

Living Statues 2012

As I promised you (and even before exam season is over) here are the photos from this year's Living Statues Festival in Rehovot.

This year I worked with a wider lens and stepped up closer to get more of the scene in. Less tight portraits though. The real fun was my lighting setup which is shown below...

Artist's Studio

I have yet another invitation for you. At least, for those of you living nearby. My brother is doing an art exhibition in Rishon LeZion this week, opening on Tuesday (3.7.12 at 20:30). You are all invited.

For the exhibition I came around to his studio to photograph the different paintings for the catalog. The artwork you can all come and see at the gallery, but I did grab a few shots of the studio as we were working.

The place used to be a diamond warehouse and it is fortified and yet falling apart at the same time. I love these old buildings.

A quick look into the artist's studio and the surrounding structure.