In October 2022, Marie and I went on a trip to Israel organised by the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (State Centre for Civic Education) of Rhineland-Palatinate and the German-Israeli Association, which included a fairly tight schedule of visits to cultural and educational institutions, with discussions and presentations involving a wide variety of people of all sorts of backgrounds. This was a fascinating and very informative trip to a country that is full of history, contradictions, conflict and – in spite of it all – an undercurrent of hope and optimism, with wonderful and hospitable people everywhere, and it will probably take us quite some time to process everything we've seen and heard. In the meantime, here are some pictures, impressions, and thoughts from that trip.
I tried to keep the amount of photography kit manageable, so all I took was the PEN-F camera and the 8–25mm/4 and 12–100mm/4 lenses in my Thinktank Retrospective 5 bag. (I also had the 17mm/1.8 prime lens which I only used during the Tel Aviv “nightlife” excursion, and the 25mm/1.8 lens which I ended up not using at all). Looking back, the PEN-F with the two zoom lenses was a very powerful and convenient combination for lightweight travel. All in all I took some 1,300 photographs during the 11 days of the trip.
Click on any picture for an enlarged view.
