Dado Beach Pier, Haifa

I stood at the end of the pier at Dado Beach in Haifa. The Sea was relatively calm, with gentle waves breaking on the rocks beneath me. Before my eyes – the Mediterranean Sea, wide and open, and on both sides of the planned panorama – the sun. One setting in the west, and the other, in an image that can only be obtained in panoramas of this kind, as well. This is what happens when you shoot at 360 degrees and more.

To the east – Haifa’s coastline: the neighborhoods of the city’s outskirts, commercial buildings, and the prominent Electric Company building. I can’t see Sammy Ofer Stadium because it’s too low, but I know it’s right behind the gleaming glass buildings of MATAM – an island of modern gold swallowed up in the slopes of Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel itself is also present – rising slowly, covered in green dots and patches of city.

On the pier’s rocks stood a fisherman, his whole body taut towards the Sea. Perhaps waiting for a bite, or simply being in the moment. In his hand – an extended fishing rod, and not far away – flip-flops, a water bottle, and other small items placed as if someone had left them there for a moment to dip in the water.

The panorama itself is made up of a cluster of images – you can see the connections, layers, changing angles. Sometimes the rocks duplicate themselves, sometimes the skies jump between different shades of blue. But that’s part of the magic: it’s not a flat picture. It’s an experience of time and space. To photograph all this, I had to stand, move, turn, aim, lean, be careful not to slip – always being aware of what’s happening around me.

Beneath me – the large pier rocks, not arranged, as if scattered there randomly, but each holding its place exactly. Some are dark and wet from the waves that washed over them a moment ago, others light and dry, absorbing the sunlight. Between the rocks – deep grooves, signs of salt, time, and the Sea. This is the base on which I stood when I photographed – stable but rough, completely natural within the landscape.

And at the heart of all this – a sense of tranquility. A pier in a calm Sea, soft evening light, one photographer and one fisherman doing what he knows how to do – waiting.