PAUL WILBUR:
PHOTOS FOR THE LIVE RECORDING OF THE ALBUM
“DESERT RAIN”
ISRAEL: JERUSALEM AND EN GHEDI
- Paul Wilbur is an artist related to the Integrity Music label and founder of Wilbur Ministries, followed by millions of fans in the Christian world.
The photographic project for this album was developed in a similar way to the one implemented for the Italian singer Ornella Vanoni, mixing episodes from the artist’s life together with the recording shooting session.
In this case, with a special focus on the place.
Indeed, many Wilbur’s recordings were set in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, the Holy City in which humankind doesn’t “goes”, but “ascends”.
Paul, his staff and I spent a few hours together visiting the Old City of Jerusalem.
Paul also willingly chatted with pilgrims or local Christians who recognized him, until we arrived at the Western Wall, in the Temple Mount area.
There we all of us felt like in the Center of the Universe, permeated by a mystical feeling that cannot be described, even though it was a place that we had visited several times before.
- A few days later, along with my colleague photographers of the ICEJ (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem), I took photos during the live recording, a concert organized in En Gedi, on the Dead Sea, during the Feast of Tabernacles.
En Gedi is the lowest place on earth (about 418 feet below the level of sea) also famous for both its beaches (and the treatment of psoriasis) and because right here David sliced King Saul’s mantel, rather than killing him while he was sleeping (1 Samuel 24:5).
Not far from En Gedi there’s Mount Sodom – the only mountain in the world to be composed of salt rock, its height increases a few millimeters per year. It attracts many tourists for the saline outcrop called “Lot’s Wife”, reminiscent of a human figure and the episode in Genesis 19:26.
At the bottom of the photo gallery you can find a video in which Paul Wilbur himself speaks about Desert Rain and Zealous Over Zion, the main song of the album.
Paul Wilbur talks about Desert Rain (video):