Emek Refaim Street Festival

A few days ago a bunch of Nativers walked down to Emek Refaim, a major shopping/dining street in Jerusalem, for a street festival. The street had been completely blockaded off, and like everywhere in Israel, security guards in bright yellow reflective vests were inspecting the bags of everyone who entered. I saw this happening ahead of me, and went to prep my camera bag so that it could be inspected as easily and efficiently as possible, but was waved through after a cursory glance that suggested I was an idiot for thinking I had been flagged as a potential threat.

The street fair was organized for two purposes: first to showcase the talents of local artists, artisans, musicians, performers, chefs, cooks, etc., and second as a way to bring in the Jewish new year in style. Every inch of sidewalk was covered by stalls selling all manner of art and food. Tiny glass figurines, scented oils, garden ornaments, and intricate leatherwork made up only a small sampling of the variety of things available. Because there were no cars, mobs of people were milling about in the middle of the street, sampling noodles from one stand, shawarma from another, and Mexican food (of dubious authenticity) from still another, all while listening to the sounds emanating from whichever of the 10 or so stages set up along the street. My personal favorite was the stage blaring live trance music, but there was also a klezmer stage, a dance stage, a rock stage, and even a stage that had evidently been home to martial arts demonstrations earlier in the day but was at this point occupied only by a gymnastics demonstration by some young Israeli girls who's finest accomplishment seemed to be a glorified cartwheel.

I had actually arrived about an hour before most of the other Nativers, because I wanted to photograph the fair. I ended up only getting a couple really quality ones though. I stuck mostly to my 50mm lens, which is both great and awful for shooting in the dark. On one hand, it's f/1.8 aperture is a blessing when shooting in low light, but on the other hand it's lack of autofocus means a lot of pictures came out beautifully composed and perfectly exposed, but completely out of focus. Alas. Hopefully there will be more of these fairs soon.

The real highlight of the evening (besides the Burgers Bar I shamelessly mooched from my friends) was the multitude of street performers that were roaming the streets as, if not more, eagerly than the crowd of guests. In just my first time up and down the street I saw a man dressed as a robot in what appeared to be pieces of air ducting, a man dressed as a frog perched atop a bus stop, singing and shouting in Hebrew while acting out frogish behavior, a bohemian on a unicycle, drag queens, and a bizarre pair that seemed to be playing a darker, more sinister version of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. After a while though, and thanks to a little pushing and shoving, as well as by displaying my camera as obviously as I could, I got to the front of a crowd for the last 10 or so minutes of a fire dancer's performance.



It took me a bit of time to get the hang of it, and I had to precariously balance my camera bag on my knee to change lenses midway through, but I eventually produced the image above along with a few others. Later on I happened across a living statue of a mermaid who graciously held very still so I got off a series of great shots, all but one of which ended up being ruined by that damned manual focus. The moral of the story is, I suppose, that practice is always valuable, even when you don't think you have the hang of something, but I'm still a little disappointed. The shot that did come out came out very well though.



I ended up spending about four hours walking around Emek, because after about two hours of shooting, indeed after I had exited the security perimeter to head back to base, I ran into a big group of friends who asked, or rather demanded, that I go with them to Burger's Bar (which was within the secure area of the festival). I protested; I had no desire to spend any money since I've been in full on starving-artist mode since my rather expensive trip to Tiveria (which I've decided will not get its own post), but they held firm and I ended up finishing a few of their massive meals, which were delicious, as befits the best burger joint in town. Afterward we walked around a lot, running into friends who live in the area or are spending the year here, looking at the art, and dancing at the trance stage, where the same band from three hours previously was now playing their second set. I got a little bit dehydrated from all the dancing though, and so I did end up spending 5 NIS on a bottle of water, which isn't so bad considering I helped a few other people hydrate too. The night ended with a delightful walk back followed shortly by a crash into my bed from exhaustion.