The Heart of the Holy City
This extraordinary photograph looks across Jerusalem from the north east, with the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque compound dominating the foreground. Built in the 7th century, the Dome of the Rock stands on the site known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount — one of the most sacred places on earth. Bonfils captured it at a moment when the Old City still existed largely as it had for centuries, its skyline unchanged and its streets alive with the rhythms of daily Palestinian life.
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives
Taken from the Mount of Olives, this sweeping panorama shows Jerusalem spread across the horizon, the Dome of the Rock visible in the distance. A solitary figure stands in the foreground beside an ancient stone wall, dwarfed by the ancient olive tree that frames the composition. The Mount of Olives has been a place of pilgrimage, prayer and contemplation for millennia — for Christians, Jews and Muslims alike — and Bonfils understood instinctively its power as a vantage point for capturing the eternal city below..
