Twelve

Introducing a short series of images taken at the Baha'i holy sites in and around Haifa, Israel during the Festival of Ridvan.


If I was a landscape photographer, I would have taken a tripod, a bunch of lenses, filters and spirit levels with me on my trip to Haifa. I would have been out early in the morning when the light was just right. And I would have spent ages composing each photograph, agonising over my lines, my rule of thirds, and my sense of depth.

But I'm not a landscape photographer. I have just recently acquired a macro lens. And I wasn't there to take pictures!

So, as I wandered through the gardens surrounding the most holy spots on earth, enchanted and enraptured, I snapped the odd picture with cheap, light, fixed focal-length lenses. Sometimes I didn't even bother bringing the camera with me on my visits to and from the Shrines of the Bab and Baha'u'llah.

What I have ended up with is a series of twelve images that constitute a (very) humble attempt to capture something of the serenity, beauty and otherworldliness of the Baha'i holy places during the twelve day festival of Ridvan - the most significant of Baha'i festivals.

Thanks for looking!

images © Sean Afnan 2012 all rights reserved