Indivisible Jerusalem

Indivisible Jerusalem is a flash multimedia project based on a research by Nadav Shragai and The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.   The objective was to convey Shragai’s research and its conclusions to wider audiences via digital media.  Since one of the main points in this initiative is to show the diverse populations throughout the city of jerusalem, the medium of interactive panorama was selected.  The initial concept was to have various multimedia windows open at various locations of the panoramic image and tell different stories.  A few drafts later the client decided to go for a  ‘lazy-user solution’ and an introductory movie was created to address the main issues without having to work too hard with buttons and interactivity.

Jerusalem Old City Market

Diversity of the population, faces, smells, and the sounds
Photographing these portraits in the Jerusalem market was one of the highlights of my year:  the diversity of population, the faces, the smells and the sounds.
I placed a heavy Cullman tripod loaded with a Nikon D700 and a Nikon 400mm manual focus lens in the middle of the Arab Market.  After asking the local vendors to move some of their merchandise I maintained all the photographic parameters (except the focus) at a set position: aperture, speed, frame – just looking and focusing.  One hour.

On a personal note I must say that artists often learn from their hands-on experiences. This Jerusalem journey made me see that despite what the newscasts portray, my hometown is a place where people do co-exist. Merely going to the clinic, grocery shop, bus or crossing the street one easily encounters the co-existence manifested in the city’s everyday life.

 

Ultra High Resolution Panorama

The initial requirement was for a low resolution panorama, one that would show the location of various neighborhoods ‘without peering through windows’. Since the challenge was finding a day with reasonable visibility (and not the actual photography), I decided to push it a little further by using a 400mm lens, instead of the agreed upon 85mm.
Afternoon hours were selected for the eastwards view.  After 4 visits to the Leonardo Hotel roof (previously known as the Sheraton) the big day arrived, poetically, on Israel’s Independence Day – therefore the flags.

panorama from the Leonardo

Panoramic View from the Jerusalem Leonardo Hotel

I took two sequences of about 550 images each with a Nikon D700 and a Nikon 400mm f3.5 lens without a teleconverter and a 85mm backup layer of about 90 images each (See illustration).
Exposure settings were: ISO320 1/640 f11 on RAW converted by Nikon View NX2 software. After stitching, the image was balanced, fixed and adjusted with Photoshop to a 195,340 by 13,114 pixels canvas.  Needless to say, each action on such a massive file takes a long time – even when using a powerful computer. click to view the results.

I had the greatest pleasure watching my 7 years old son playing with the interface exploring the city we reside in, looking for all the places he know and adding his comments.

 

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