"If there were any truth in the stories they tell about the lake in Palestine, it would further bear out what I say. For they say if you bind a man or beast and throw him into it he floats and does not sink beneath the surface; and that the lake is so bitter and salty that there are no fish in it, and that if you wet clothes in it and shake them out it cleans them."
Portfolio Series
On the western shores of the Dead Sea, I photographed bathers who traveled from afar to partake in the salt sea's healing powers known since antiquity. In the twenty-first century, the very existence of the Dead Sea is in danger due to water shortages, climate change, and industrial mining by Israel and Jordan. Near the Biblical oasis of Ein Gedi, gaping sinkholes have made the terrain impassable. Some of the beaches where I photographed have since disappeared, along with the legendary date plantation at Kibbutz Ein Gedi. The pictures evoke an era that has vanished at the sea, the lowest point on earth.
Click each image to enlarge.
Abraham
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Hands That Survived
1994, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Julie, Ein Bokek, Israel
1993-1994, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
German Couple
1988, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
German Mud Bather
1988, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Jerusalem Mud Bathers
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Sulphur Bather
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
French Bather
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Refraction
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
The Old Man and the Dead Sea
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Austrian Doctor, Ein Bokek
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Anna Dreams
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Looking Towards Ein Gedi
(Month of March)
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Looking Towards Ein Gedi
(Month of August)
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Development Can Not Be Stopped
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Mountains of Sodom
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Dining in the Desert
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Waterfall, Ein Gedi Nature Reserve
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Mining the Dead Sea
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Hotel Industry, Dead Sea
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Borderline
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
The Kiss
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Tamareem
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Mt. Ein Gedi
1991, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
Shadow Figure
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
The Dead Sea is Dying
1988-2002, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"
A Bomb's Eye View from the Lyddo Bathhouse
1993, Photograph, Chromogenic Print, 15" x 15"