These fine art photographs are a beautiful way to share your faith and inspire others – and they make a wonderful holiday gift idea too. Imagine how meaningful it would be to give someone a gift created just for them, one that speaks directly to their heart in the most personal of ways. I’m offering my fine art photographs printed with meaningful verses from the Christian Scripture or any other verse, poem or quote you finds meaningful. I’ve got a number of ready-made prints for sale and am also offering a custom-designed offer – your favorite quote or verse on the photograph of your choice. (For my Jewish clients, a Judaica section is already in the works – and remember, a custom Photoverse print can have any quote you like on any of the photographs in my shop.)

Photoverse prints look wonderful framed and would make a really special Christmas gift, especially with a verse chosen especially for its personal meaning to the recipient. Searching for a unique gift idea for someone special? This might just fit the bill.  

 Click here to see the new Christian Art section at Around the Island Photography, and I’d be most grateful if you’d consider forwarding this on to anyone you think might find it of interest.

Reach for the Sun

Click here to purchase this stunning image from my online store.

Nature never ceases to amaze and delight. This stunning image is actually the reverse side of my Firework Chrysanthemum. The same flower, two completely different pieces. Both beautifully dramatic and yet so very different in appearance with the change in perspective.

Best of all? Both of these images are brand new, which means that as I’m writing this the actual flower is sitting in a vase right on the counter for me to enjoy.

May All Your Fireworks Be Bright

Not ready to see those Fourth of July fireworks come to an end? Hang this stunningly dramatic floral firework in your home and you won’t have to. Israel’s Independence Day was back in May so I was thrilled to create this stand-in for the holiday fireworks I remember from childhood Fourth of July celebrations at the lake.

When you’re done with the barbecues and the celebrations swing by my etsy shop to stick this gorgeous photograph in your shopping cart and discover what else is new – with so many new pieces listed there’s sure to be one that’s just perfect for that nagging blank spot on your wall.

Visit my etsy shop to purchase my photography

Old Jaffa Doorway

I’ve just taken a big step and entered my portfolio into the Artists Wanted competition, a very serious (and flippin’ expensive – yikes!) competition for emerging photographers. I’d be most grateful if you’d click through to my portfolio and rate it (preferably highly ). All you need to do is click on the appropriate star, no registration or personal details necessary (hint: the 5th star on the right is “fantastic” – a 5-star rating). You can vote once every day until the contest closes.

My Artists Wanted Portfolio – click here to view and rate

Beyond the (albeit remote) chance of winning (a stupendously mindblowingly wonderful prize), the portfolio database will also be made available to a wide range of industry professionals, gallerists, etc. so I want to garner as much positive attention as possible to get my name and work in front of the people who call the shots.

So please – vote early and vote often.

Thanks so much,
Robin

Butterfly on an Almond Blossom

Tu B’Shvat (the New Year for the Trees, sort of a Jewish Arbor Day) was this past weekend and the almond trees are in bloom – right on schedule. 

Almond Blossoms in the Sun

Here in Israel almond trees burst into bloom within days of Tu B’Shvat (pretty smart trees, aren’t they? How do they always know?) As someone who thrives on warmth and sunlight this is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s not quite spring yet, but this riot of flowers is like a word of reassurance from Mother Nature, a sure sign that it won’t be too much longer now before we bid goodbye to the gray skies and long sleeves of winter.

Seeing these trees in full flower is a true feast for the soul – and for the animals, too. I’ve never seen so many butterflies congregating in one place in my life, and the bees, too, so busy with their pollen and being busy as, well, bees, that they never even noticed the two-legged interloper with the black box in front of her eyes.   

Almond Blossoms Against a Bright Blue Sky

Butterfly on an Almond Blossom 2

 To bring this breath of spring into your own home pop over to my etsy shop, where you’ll find these and more of my fine art and nature photography available for purchase.

Taking Tandem Nursing to New Heights

Until I saw this mama giraffe and her children at the Ramat Gan Safari Park here in Israel I never realized that some animals tandem nurse, I’d always assumed that the older nursling is weaned before the next one arrives. What a treat to witness such a special moment.

This image is not currently listed in my shop. If you’d like to purchase a copy let me know and I’ll make a listing for you right away – it would look great on the wall of a breastfeeding clinic. And while you’re here, take a moment to click through to the shop as well for more images that would look great on your home or office wall.)

For those of you visiting from the party, welcome to Around the Island Photography, where I share the stories, laughs and mishaps behind the images for sale in my Etsy shop.

Like this one, for example.

Israeli Sunrise, December 2009

I’d never have gotten this image had I not been too tired to go up to bed one evening. Instead of sleeping in my warm comfortable bed with my warm comfortable husband blanket I’d fallen asleep on the living room couch. Not all that comfortable and definitely not that warm. Instead of remaining happily in dreamland until the alarm went off at 7am I found myself awake, cold, and very grumpy at the much too early hour of 5am.

Luckily for me I glanced out of the window while I was rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and saw the first hints of sun just beginning to streak over the horizon. Figuring that further sleep was already a lost cause I grabbed my camera and headed outside, just in time to capture that glorious sunrise you see above.

Serendipity? Premonition? Dumb luck? Who knows, but whatever it was, I’ll take it.

Now if I could just figure out a way to schedule those glorious sunrises for a more reasonable hour…

Pink Chrysanthemum

I absolutely adore this image. In fact, I’d say it’s in the running for my all-time favorite floral. I love everything about it – the bright, vibrant colors, the contrast between the vivid flower and the black background, the way the petals almost seem to have a checkerboard pattern to them (how does Mother Nature do that, anyway?). As soon as I saw this one I knew it was headed straight for my Etsy shop.

I only had one small problem.

What the heck was it? How could I give it a name if I didn’t have the faintest idea what it was? Now I love flowers – to look at, to photograph, to smell (atchoo! sorry, they also make me sneeze) – but I can’t grow them to save my life. I have the world’s blackest thumb. I can even kill plastic plants given half a chance. Plant stores bar their doors when they see me coming with my Black Finger of (Plant) Death. Given this, it’s no surprise that I’m not exactly up on my flower names.

I did what any self-respecting city girl would do – I called the florist down the block and asked her. She was quite certain that it was a chrysanthemum, but when I showed the image to a number of friends several were convinced it was in fact a gerbera daisy.

Hmmm…

Chrysanthemum or daisy? (I need to get this right or I’ll look like an idiot, I thought to myself.)

I took the next logical step and started googling “pink chrysanthemums”. Strange, most of those looked quite different. Still, it didn’t really look like the gerberas I’d seen either, the center was wrong.

I finally struck gold when I google “pink chrysanthemum with yellow center”, which brought me to a garden site (with really lousy pictures by the way, I should offer them mine) that explained that chrysanthemums are in fact members of the daisy family. A-ha! That explains it – it’s both! A chrysanthemum, AND a relative of the gerbera daisy.

Phew. Mystery solved. Now I can get back to solving the really important crisis in my life – where the heck have all those odd socks gone, and are they going to come back before I break down and go buy more?

Click here to purchase a copy of this gorgeous photo for yourself. And when you do, tell me which way you plan to hang it, because I can’t decide for myself which direction I prefer – it looks great each way!

This doesn’t stop them though from teaching children about fall, and specifically about falling leaves. My 6 year old daughter came home from kindergarten one day all excited to collect leaves and bring them in to show her teacher. I dutifully helped her gather up a few sorry specimens but the thing was,  to her, they weren’t sorry at all. They were wonderful and magical and perfect. She was so enchanted with one leaf in particular that I became determined to see it through her eyes, to find the beauty hiding inside.

And you know what?

When I took the time to really look, to really see, I did.

Autumn Leaf

It was there all along, just waiting for me to come along and set it free. Who says Israel doesn’t have fall foliage?

This image, for sale in my etsy shop, looks stunning both matted and framed and as a ready-to-hang canvas wrap.