Ancient Window of Masada

Ancient Window from Masada.
I captured this photo visiting Israel in Feb 2019.

Looking westward through a "window" from Masada, an ancient Roman fortification on top of an isolated rock plateau In southern Israel on the eastern edge of the Judean desert. Herod the Great built two palaces on the mountain between 37-31 BC. But in 66 AD, a group of Jewish rebels overcame the Roman garrison of Masada and took control of the fortress.  

In 73 AD the Roman government finally sent a legion of Roman soldiers (8,000-9,000 fighting soldiers) and Jewish prisoners of war (6,000-7,000) to Masada and laid siege to it. They used the slave labor to build a giant siege ramp of stone and rubble.  At the bottom left corner of the window is the beginning of the siege ramp.  

If we could rewind time to the spring of 73 AD we would be seeing the countryside sprawling with tents and command posts for the nearly 15,000 soldiers and slaves.  If you leaned forward and looked down from the window, you would see the slaves carrying and pouring rock as they gradually built the siege ramp higher and higher. After three months of laying siege, on April 16th, the Romans pushed a large battering ram up the ramp and breached the wall of the fortress. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, "when Roman troops entered the fortress, they discovered that its defenders had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide or killed each other, 960 men, women, and children in total.  Only two women and five children were found alive."

The eastern view of Masada.
Tourists can ascend by cable car or on foot.

First Swing at Restoring an Old Family Photo from 1978

My first swing at restoring some old photos. A summer family vacation picture as we drive through the petrified forest in New Mexico or Arizona on a hot and sunny day in 1978. I'm 6, Jennifer is 4, Mom is keeping me from pulling Jennifer's hair or teasing her, and Dad is behind the camera. Us kids are sporting some fancy sunglasses. 

That summer's top radio hits we would have been listening to on the long road trip from Missouri to California and back would have been "You Light Up My Life' by Debbie Boone and "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees. "Grease" was the hit movie that summer as well. But we didn't care...WE WERE GOING TO DISNEYLAND! 

 

Editing process: My editing programs are Affinity Photo (AP) and Luminar NEO (NEO) 

In AP I used the healing brush to remove the material and spots. In NEO I reduced the blue cast by changing the white balance and saturation. I created a mask for the sky and lightened it up more to make it as realistic as possible. I also used the dodge and burn on the petrified log behind me to lighten up the dark shadow to create some separation from my black shorts and the shadow. Did minimal erasing around the edges of the bodies (that's healing brush in AP but erase in NEO) and lightened the faces a little but the original picture is low quality so can't do much about it.