I find niche tours to be interesting, and it is for that reason that I offer a few specialty tours of my own. For example, being a big foodie, and knowing many of the unique food-related sites in this country, I love giving culinary tours. But while I have been taking photos virtually my whole life, and have even been paid for this work a bit, I would not say that I am an expert in the field of photography. I have more knowledge and skill than many, but not nearly as much as a true professional.
Thus, while I’d heard of people offering photography tours before, I never really offered one of my own. I’m sure I could do a decent job, but some things are better left to others. Thus, when I heard about Rinat Halon‘s photography tour in Tel Aviv, I decided to join her to see what it was all about.
The tour I joined was in English (Rinat offers tours both in English and in Hebrew, having grown up in both Israel and the U.S.), and was aimed primarily at beginners. The other participants on the tour were three women who all worked at the U.S. Embassy, and we had a lovely time together.
Rinat did a great job of tailoring her lessons to each person’s individual cameras, explaining for each person how best to maximize and utilize the possible settings. One of her goals, however, was to also educate us about the potential options out there, so that whenever we decide to go look for a new camera, we can know what features we might want to look for.
Typically, Rinat does these tours with her mother, and her mom tells stories about the neighborhood and some of the significant buildings and personalities. In this case, her mom did not join, so Rinat told us a bit about some of the history on her own, and since she knew I was a tour guide, she pressed me into action a bit as well. Which in truth was part of the point of my joining her tour in the first place. I had spoken with Rinat in advance, and we discussed the possibility of doing a similar tour together here in Jerusalem.
As you know, I already run a series of walking tours in Jerusalem, aimed at helping people get a deeper knowledge and understanding of this city. So I thought that there might be an interest in a tour that not only covers that ground, but also helps you learn to better photograph this city. I would explain things about what we were seeing, and Rinat would focus (pun intended) on the photographic aspect.
So, if this is something that interests you, please contact me to let me know, and we’ll see about arranging such a tour.
And if you want to see some of the other photos I took (with just my iPhone camera), here is the Flickr set with them. Enjoy!
It seemed that you have enjoyed you photographic tour too much in Tel Aviv as described by you through this post. Thanks for sharing this experience of tour with us. We will really contact your to get knowledge or various arrangement to make a tour interesting and enjoyable.