Tzfat, Israel

NeuralLotus

Really lucky I got this shot. I was on a Birthright trip in Israel, and when we were in the city of Tzfat (or Zefat, as most English transliterations incorrectly call it) there were a lot of thin alleys in the older part of the city. I looked down one while walking with my group to a Sephardic synagogue, and happened to see a Hassidic Jew walking down an alley. I thought to myself, "this would make a perfect shot". But knowing that the man was walking I knew I had to act fast, so I decided instantly to just shoot from the hip because I knew I didn't have enough time to deal with the viewfinder. I then decided that the f-stop and shutter speed that I had used for the previous shot would work fine, but I was a little worried about the focus. Judging by the situation I was pretty sure that the focus would work fine here. So, I aimed, hoped, and shot; all of this happening in about four seconds.

Fortunately I managed to get the shot. And even more fortunately it came out a lot better than the shots I took right afterwards looking through the viewfinder, largely due to the fact that I tilted the camera when I shot from the hip and straightened it when I looked through the viewfinder.




TL;DR Shot from the hip; was very happily surprised.







I apologize for the copyright on it, I just don't like to upload photos to the internet without it. I also apologize for Flickr, as it seems to have suppressed the resolution a bit.

I spent about two and a half hours editing this photo so far, but I feel like there's still a lot I can do to make it better. So any C&C is welcome.

Richard

Yeah, sometimes you have no time to do anything but shoot. The tilt doesn't bother me in this one, but I think you were too far from your subject. I also don't much care for the air conditioners--I realize that's just today's reality everywhere you go, but for me, old stones are nicer to look at. Since you have spent a lot of time on this pic, I'll give you a couple of editing suggestions. If you have enough pixels, I would consider a radical crop that eliminates the top half of the frame--that would make your subject stand out more and also eliminate the air conditioners. Then I would try to recover some of the detail in the cobblestones.

Got any more shots to share? My wife and daughter visited Tzfat several years ago and said it was a fascinating place.