Ayalon Light Trails: Tel Aviv in Reflection

Late November, around 10pm, I stood at Al Parashat Drakhim in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, looking south into the Ayalon corridor. From this bridge you can see the whole system lined up: highway lanes, rail lines, and the dark channel that runs between them. The city was loud, but the frame was calm, because everything moved in the same direction. What pulled me in was the flow of light and the way the towers doubled themselves in the water below.

I love scenes like this because they look messy in real time, but a long exposure turns them into design. Headlights become a bright river, tail lights become a red current, and the rails draw their own steady stripe through the middle. Windows in the high rises stop being random dots and start reading like a texture, almost like a grid. For a few seconds, Tel Aviv feels like a powered circuit, all signal, no noise.

The water you see here is the Ayalon stream channel. The Ayalon runs about 50 km before it reaches the Yarkon, and much of it is seasonal, often dry in the summer and active in winter rains. In the Tel Aviv area it is carried in a concrete channel that sits right next to Route 20 and the main rail line, which is why this view feels so tightly engineered. In heavy winter storms, this same corridor can flood and shut down the highway and trains, a reminder that the city is still negotiating with its own geography.

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The corridor as a stage

This wide frame is where the whole idea clicks. The highway curve is a clean leading line, the rail corridor holds its own red thread, and the channel runs between them as a dark mirror. The skyline sits back but still dominates, because the towers are tall, close, and filled with light. Even with haze in the sky, the structure is clear because the movement is doing the composition work for you.

In editing, I wanted to keep three things readable at the same time: the separation between white and red trails, the window detail in the towers, and the reflection in the channel. If the highlights blow out, the trails lose their rhythm and become a white slab. If the shadows are lifted too far, the water turns noisy and the concrete banks start to look harsh. The goal was controlled energy, not chaos.

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When the towers wake up

The portrait frame compresses the story and pulls the skyline forward. The curve becomes more dramatic, the light lines feel faster, and the high rises look closer and heavier. The haze becomes part of the mood, like a soft ceiling that keeps the glow trapped around the city. It is still the same corridor, but the emphasis shifts from the flow to the buildings that watch the flow pass by.

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White river, red river

This version feels closest to pure urban energy. The white stream is fast and bright, the red stream is steady and precise, and the tower wall on the right turns into a dense pattern of lit rooms. The channel reflection is subtle, but it matters because it gives the scene a second horizon line, one made of water. That reflection was one of the main reasons I stayed here and kept shooting, because it turns infrastructure into something almost cinematic.

Technically, this is a balancing act. The streetlights can flare, the brightest trail segments can clip, and the darker mid channel can fall apart if pushed too hard. I kept the look neutral and clean, with enough contrast to separate the trails, but not so much that the sky becomes heavy or the buildings start to look crunchy. The energy is in the motion, not in aggressive processing.

What hit me most is how much the skyline has changed in the last years. Israel is building up, and places I used to know by heart keep shifting shape. The corridor is familiar, but the vertical city around it keeps growing, and that changes how the whole place feels. From this viewpoint, the towers do not just sit in the background, they become part of the flow, reflected and repeated like they are moving too.

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Rail and road, side by side

The station lights add a human scale that the skyline alone cannot. Platforms, signs, and poles sit under the same night glow as the towers, while the red highway trails keep slicing forward on the right. The lit platform area makes the whole corridor feel more lived in, like you can imagine the late trains arriving and the last commuters heading home. It is a reminder that this is not just traffic, it is a working spine that carries the city.

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A final sweep into the night

Ending on this curve feels right because it shows motion without needing drama. The trails stack into clean layers, the distant towers still reflect in the narrow water line, and the frame holds together as one long breath. It looks almost simple, until you remember how many moving parts are staying in sync: cars, trains, lights, and a city that keeps building upward around the same corridor.

If you want the earlier chapter from this same theme, see Ayalon Nights: Tel Aviv in Motion. This post continues the same corridor, but with a stronger focus on reflections and the vertical city.

Explore more in Night Photography and in the Night gallery.

Amir
Photographer, Builder, Dreamer
amir2000.nl