Tel Aviv Street Photography Tour

Tel Aviv Street Photography Tour with a Professional Photographer

 

Experience a Tel Aviv Street Photography Tour through the eyes of a professional photographer. With over 30 years experience in leading photo tours and workshops, this private 3 hour photo walk offers an insight into this young, dynamic and energetic city through the eyes of a native street photographer. Customized itineraries that can be designed around candid street photography, environmental portraits and architectural photography through the city’s most photogenic locations and hidden gems.

Excellent photo opportunities can be discovered within the Florentin, Neve Tzedek and Old Jaffa neighborhoods, where we discover the largest collection of Bauhaus architecture in the world, ancient streets and ultra-modern high-rise buildings. Street photography in the Carmel Market, Rothschild Boulevard, beach promenade and Levinsky Spice Market is also on our route.

Connected to Tel Aviv is Jaffa, known for its tumultuous past and hopeful future, that overlooks the oldest port in the world. Jaffa offers the travel photographer a glimpse into the past through its narrow alleyways and ancient stones. Tel Aviv is a melting pot of people from all backgrounds, a contrast of the ancient and ultra-modern, this city is just waiting to be explored.

Tel Aviv is one of the most vibrant cities in the world – a rapidly growing city in the midst of an exciting transition from a medium-sized urban centre to a bustling international metropolis. Its booming population, energy, and 24-hour lifestyle give the city a cosmopolitan flair comparable to few other cities in this part of the world. Taking advantage of a diverse cultural life, a beautiful beachfront, major museums, world-renowned architecture, and top-class restaurants and bars, it is a destination that is hard to beat.

Our informal teaching style involves hands-on tuition while practicing our craft out on the street. We pride ourselves on customizing itineraries carefully curated for the individual’s needs. Skill level, technical proficiency and photographic genres are taken into account, while emphasizing the importance of injecting creativity into your work. We will help you overcome the challenge of photographing strangers in a foreign country, where cultural considerations and respecting local norms are incorporated into the shooting process.

Thanks to a progressive and open society, photographing the locals of Tel Aviv is a fun and engaging experience. There is a sense of familiarity and curious abruptness when conversing with the locals. The happy, care-free and liberal society means that carefully composed environmental portraits of locals in their workplace, characters sitting on park benches, or fitness fanatics working out on the beach, are relatively easy to capture with your camera.

Street Photography Techniques

 

Street photography is a highlight for the avid travel photographer visiting Tel Aviv, where candid images of individuals captured in great light and composed with unique backgrounds can be attained. We will go over the skills needed and techniques used in capturing fast-moving subjects, where speed is key, and simplifying the decision-making process will improve your success rate in capturing the kind of images you want.

Unlike other genres of photography, becoming a successful street photographer can be as much about using a small camera and lens, knowing the rules and norms in shooting in a foreign country, and becoming inconspicuous and street-wise, compared to your skill level and technical proficiency. You can check this blog post on Street Photography Techniques to help you prepare beforehand.

Designed as an introduction to photographing various subject matters in an urban environment, we cover the various camera settings and techniques in order to take control of your camera, and how and when to utilize them. Instead of relying on the fully automatic Program Mode of your camera, we emphasize mastering the manual and semi-automatic modes including aperture, shutter priority and manual modes, ISO, focus options, drive modes, metering options, exposure compensation and more.

Compared to some other photography subjects where absolute image quality attainable is key, street photography is more about timing. One of the benefits of this genre of photography is the simplicity of the camera equipment needed. While some photographers may wish to take a camera bag with a variety of lenses, extra camera bodies and a tripod, the ideal setup would be using a single camera, with either a 28mm, 35mm or 50mm lens attached [or a standard zoom that covers those focal lengths]. This type of photography generally entails getting close to your subjects.

In most cases, you would be aiming for a focal length that captures a subject while including enough background for contextual images. Ideally, you would take a camera on a strap and bring enough batteries to last your time shooting. Many street photographers today use vintage film cameras, while others use a compact, fixed focal length camera to be more inconspicuous. We have also seen excellent results from the cameras on modern smart phones, making street photography accessible to everyone.

Best Spots in Tel Aviv for Street Photography

 

• Shenkin Street: Trendy designer boutiques, fashion houses, bustling cafe’s, and a Bohemian charm attract photogenic locals to this historic street, especially on Fridays.
• Carmel Market: A favorite for many street photographers. Loaded with photo opportunities, it is ideal to visit during the late afternoon for the best light and saturated colors.
• Neve Tzedek: Chic and trendy, Neve Tzedek is one of Tel Aviv’s oldest districts. British Mandate architecture allows for subjects to be photographed with stunning backgrounds.
• Rothschild Boulevard: A beautiful tree-lined pedestrian street with Bauhaus architecture. Excellent photo opportunities of panning shots of the locals on electric scooters.
• Beachfront Promenade: Photograph the vitality and energy of Tel Aviv as fitness fanatics, dog walkers and electric bikes converge. Beautiful during afternoon golden hour.
• Jaffa Flea Market: Environmental portraits and street photography with historic backgrounds. Market traders, vintage furniture, grungy street art and excellent cuisine options.
• Jaffa Port: The oldest port in the world, and an ideal location to photograph families of Arab locals, fisherman and wedding photoshoots. Recommended to visit around sunset.
• Florentin: Trendy and upcoming Florentin is known for prolific street art, trendy cafes, restaurants, and an exciting nightlife culture. An ideal location for street photographers.
• Levinsky Market: A hidden gem for storytelling photography and environmental portraits. Vibrant colors, spices, dried fruits and coffee, makes this market a delight for foodies.
• Nachlat Binyamin: Originally a district predominantly selling textiles, it is now a hip contrast of gritty decay and urban renewal. Visit the craft market on Tuesday’s and Fridays.

Tel Aviv Photo Tour Itinerary

 

Our Tel Aviv Photo Tour begins when meeting our guests at HaTachana, the restored old train station [just off HaYarkon street]. We will head to the neighbourhood of Neve Tzedek, renowned for it’s beautiful light, renovated historical buildings, decaying buildings as well as fashionable cafe’s restaurants and designer’s workshops.

A short walk away is the Shuk HaPishpishim [flea market] which offers wonderful photo opportunities. You will capture the relaxed atmosphere where traders and buyers come to look for anything from coffee pots to Afghan rugs. The flea market also has one of our favourite humus bars, an ideal stop for a quick snack where we can talk about different aspects of photography, and how to achieve the desired image the photographer is trying to create.

From the flea market, we will head towards Old Jaffa with its maze of homes, winding alleyways and ancient stones, before arriving to the Ancient Port, the oldest sea port in the world. Walking through Old Jaffa is like walking back to it’s origins of some 4000 years. The top of the hill in Jaffa offers panoramic views of Tel Aviv’s modern buildings along it’s shoreline.

On leaving Jaffa, we will arrive to one of Israel’s most thriving and busy markets. The Shuk HaCarmel [Carmel market] is a great site for street photography and environmental portraits. This is a great spot to learn different camera settings such as slow shutter speeds for adding a sense of movement, large apertures for selective focus on the market produce, as well as other methods to add impact to your images.

From the Carmel market, we will head towards the largest collection of Bauhaus architecture in the world. Known as the White City, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The White City refers to a collection of over 4,000 buildings built in a unique form of the Bauhaus or International style in Tel Aviv from the 1930s by German Jewish architects who immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine after the rise of the Nazis.

Depending on our guest’s requirements, we often make a detour to include locations off the beaten path, such as practicing environmental portraiture amongst the spices in the gritty Levinsky Market, trying panning and slow-shutter speeds of cyclists on the beautiful Rothschild Street or capturing a glimpse of the past from the textile industry in the Nachlaot Binyamin district and nearby craft market.

From here we will capture candid photos of the locals set amongst Tel Aviv’s fantastic street art in the Florentin neighborhood, before ending the tour at our meeting point.

For photographers that would like to try our private Afternoon Tel Aviv and Jaffa Photo Tour, we include photography by the broadwalk by the beach. This is the perfect time of day to capture the energy and vitality of the locals and seascapes in the best light. Warm, directional lighting creates shadows and depth – perfect for images composed of layering foreground, middle ground and background. Golden Hour and evening Blue Hour is the ideal time to photograph Old Jaffa, the ancient hillside town overlooking the iconic port. A perfect location to end our tour. To book a Tel Aviv Photography Tour, you can request information on our pricing and availability, by contacting us.

Best Photography Tour in Tel Aviv

 

Best photography tour in Tel Aviv is a phrase we hear often from amateur to semi-pro photographers that have experienced photo walks with us. Our goal is to offer each and every one of our guests the most productive, fun and educational experience possible. Reviews, testimonials and recommendations of our Tel Aviv Photography Tours can be searched online, or by visiting our TripAdvisor page.

Instruction and guiding within Israel is done by Laurie Cohen, the owner of the company. Laurie has been leading photography tours and workshops around the world for over 30 years. Other reviews and testimonials can be found by checking information on the website of our sister company at Barcelona Photography Tours.