The Muzzein Belched

I think the muzzeins of different mosques sometimes try to out-muzzein each other. The other morning, one mosque belted out the pre-dawn call to prayer at 4am. Then every mosque in the area did the call for prayer at 4:30. Then, the first mosque--the one right outside my window, of course--did another call at 5am. I dunno--maybe no one came to the first two calls? I think there have been at least three different muzzeins doing the call to prayer at the mosque nearest me (the Mosque of the Ascension), and one of them definitely sounds like an older guy: his voice sometimes squeaks, and he sometimes clears his throat into the mike. But one of the younger-sounding ones was doing the afternoon call to prayer, and in the middle of it--between "God is Greatest" and "There is no god but God," he belched. Not very loudly, and not a long belch--but loud enough that everyone within earshot heard it.

Keeping on the religious topic, I visited places holy to the three great monotheistic religions. The Western Wall (aka the 'Wailing Wall') of the Second Temple, the holiest place for Jews--though technically, the Temple Mount itself is holier... but Jews are forbidden to go there. Or so I thought, as when I visited the Temple Mount, there were some IDF soldiers up there. The books I have read on the subject have misinformed me.

As I just noted, I went up to the Temple Mount--or, to Muslims, the Haram ash-Sharif (the 'Noble Sanctuary')--site of the Al Aqsa Mosque (mentioned in the Qur'an), and the Dome of the Rock. The Rock in the Dome is believed by Jews to be the stone upon which Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son to prove his dedication to God. To Muslims, Abraham was in Arabia for this event, and the Rock in the Dome is instead the point from which Muhammad ascended to heaven. All in all, a pretty holy place--the site of the Second Temple of the Jews, and the third-holiest site in Islam.

But wait--there's more holiness! On the way to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, I stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane, which according to Christian tradition, is where Jesus spent the last night before his crucifixion. There are olive trees in the Garden, several of which have been scientifically dated to be more than 2000 years old. I took pictures of them (and will post them later). Is that enough holiness for you? Because there's more!

I also went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher--the church built (by the Emperor Constantine's mother) on Golgatha (where Christ was crucified), and containing the crypt where Jesus was interred.

I had some very tasty Armenian food for lunch, too.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd post more about politics, but I spent way too much time working on some of these photos for posting, and so you're just going to have to wait for more political ranting.

The pictures are in reverse-order of how I should've loaded them, and I'm not going to mess with moving stuff, as the last time I tried that, the blog crashed.


First up, the rotunda inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This isn't a HDR composite--just a regular shot with very little post-processing. I love my IS lens: I hand-held a 1/5 second exposure and it's sharp as a tack.

Next, a hallway in the back of the church. This is a HDR composite of two images--the third was too long of an exposure for even the image stabilizer to keep steady (2.5 seconds). Honestly, I don't think it needs the third.

This is in the front-ish of the church, near the shrine to the left of the entrance. This frescoe is from the Byzantine era. In the right of the frame, you can see the people lining up to go into the shrine. I got berated by a priest for wearing a hat inside; I guess it's OK to wear a hat if you're standing in line for the shrine? This is another 2-shot HDR composite.

This is looking back towards the entrance. This is a 3-shot HDR composite, which results in "ghosting" of multiple images of the same person as they move through the three exposures.

This shot is in basically the same location, but rotated 180 degrees--so this is the view directly behind where I was standing in the last shot. It's a 3-exposure composite HDR image, but the light streaks were not added--it was pretty smoky inside, due to all the votives and tapers that were burning. This is one of my favorite images from the trip so far, if I do say so myself.

This is "extreme close-up" detail on the Dome of the Rock, so you can see all the calligraphy and tile work. The larger image is below.

The entire image of the Dome of the Rock. This is a single exposure--not HDR--but I did some considerable tweaking (correcting the perspective, saturating the blue sky) to make the image more vivid--the light was pretty harsh when I took the picture. If you look closely, you can see the moon right next to the dome (if the dome was a clock face, look at about 2:00).

Again, the order on these pictures is all messed up: this is some stained glass from inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

I had forgotten to post this one earlier: this is a view of the Old City at night. You can see the Dome of the Rock on the right, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque just left-of-center. This is another HDR composite of three photos, shot on a tripod from the Mount of Olives, near where I was staying.