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Jerusalem: Bird's-eye views

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  • Jerusalem: Bird's-eye views

    BIRD'S-EYE VIEWS
    By Susan Goodman

    Jerusalem Post
    Aug 30 2005

    When we decided to take some aerial pictures of the Temple Mount
    a voice from the control tower roared at us, 'Are you out of your
    minds?! You can't fly over the Temple Mount. You'll cause a world
    war!'"

    This was one of the hazards mentioned by Moshe Miller in taking the
    photographs for Jerusalem of the Heavens: The Eternal City in Bird's
    Eye View.

    Flanked by desert and surrounded by hills and valleys, a mixture of
    old and new, Jerusalem is breathtakingly photogenic from an elevated
    perspective. In this book, by Moshe Miller and Yehuda Solomon, the
    camera soars above the city revealing a broad canvas of patterns and
    textures formed by people, buildings and landscape.

    Other times the camera hovers only a few meters above the ground,
    bringing us intimate pictures of the faithful preoccupied with
    religious ritual - the distance doesn't remove us from the scene but
    enables the camera to observe without intruding. We see a Franciscan
    monk about to turn a page of his book, and the Armenian Catholic
    archbishop washing the feet of children. The rich religious pageant
    of this city is laid before us with great artistry and sensitivity.

    The authors write about the difficulties they encountered with
    religious authorities when preparing this book. "The muezzin forbade us
    to photograph the Aksa mosque, while the Greek Orthodox clergy didn't
    want us to shoot the Roman Catholic ceremonies the ultra orthodox Jews
    were of course infuriated when we drew our cameras on the Sabbath."

    However, they also pay tribute to those who helped organize photographs
    of religious activity and identify rituals. At the back of the book
    are short explanations of the content of each photo and these give
    us further understanding of the spiritual diversity that is the focus
    of much of this heavenly book.

    You'll find another book of aerial photographs, Skyline Jerusalem,
    in most Jerusalem bookstores. The pictures were taken by two former
    Israel Air Force pilots, Duby Tal and Moni Haramati. The book can't
    boast the artistic merits of Jerusalem of the Heavens, but does
    offer us a "peek into different neighborhoods" from a new angle. I
    especially like the pairs of photos showing the same scene in golden
    summer sunshine and also in winter white.

    It was a photo by these two former pilots which inspired a painting
    by Martin Rink of White Storks flying peacefully over the Holy City
    - a true bird's eye view. The painting is reproduced at the end of
    Flying with the Birds by Yossi Leshem and Ofer Bahat.

    Wedged between the Syrian-African Rift to the east and the
    Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel lies directly on the route of
    500 million birds migrating between Europe and Africa - producing a
    real risk of bird-plane collisions.

    This unusual book is the result of an extensive study into bird
    flight patterns over Israel. The research enabled the Israeli Air
    Force to reduce these midair accidents by changing the location of
    training flights.

    With its extensive descriptions of worldwide animal migrations and bird
    flight, Flying with the Birds includes some remarkable photos of planes
    sharing Israeli skies with flocks of birds. Most of us rarely glimpse
    these millions passing overhead, some of them at altitudes as high
    as 7 km. The landscapes below look little more than an indistinct blur.

    Far above the birds, at heights of about 700 km, the satellites watch
    over us. For the ultimate bird's eye view of your street and home,
    log on to http://earth.google.com. This free Google Earth program
    enables you to zoom in on almost any part of the Earth's surface. You
    can even rotate and tilt the angle of view. It's an absolutely stunning
    piece of software.
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