Ceasarea

The port town of Caesarea Maritima was built by Herod The Great and later used by the Romans.  Before you get to the Roman part, used for horse racing, you pass through the gothic architecture of Crusader gates and arches.  More recent developments have included private museums and a golf course.  Most sites in the Middle East have had more than one owner.

As usual, the site is mostly in ruins although it is well preserved and the size of it must make it one of the largest archeology sites in the region.  Much work has been done to update it and it also boast a modern amphitheatre, shops and restaurants.

I am pleased with the results of using 50 speed film on these photographs.  The film was out of date and had been through an xray machine but was perfectly fine and worked very well in the strong Mediterranean sunlight.  It’s not fully appreciable in the scaled down versions of these photos for the web but the film really did bring out the detail and texture of the stone work.  Overall, I think monochrome suited this subject, which doesn’t really have a great deal of colour to it anyway.