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Foto Friday – T-Market Tel Aviv 2012

We are back from the T:Market Tel-Aviv Passover 2012 and are now all kitted out for summer. The event, which has been going strong for almost a decade, gathers the city’s independent t-shirt designers together under one roof (it’s more of a tent, really) for a 3-day long festival of fashion, accessories and music.

T-shirts, according to a lengthy Wikipedia entry, are a form of personal expression. Fortunately, for those who have difficulty in expressing themselves, (or perhaps, in forming coherent thoughts), since the 1950s there have been manufacturers willing to fill the echoing gap and Israel has long been a part of that trend (check out my Entebbe Raid tee from 1976). Over the past few years, however, there has been an explosion in underground manufacturers using the t-shirt as a canvas to post artistic, social and/or political commentary and/or humor.

Their messages aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (or is that tee?) and the humor of today’s Israeli youth might not be accessible to all. For example, last year I did not get why a picture of a jihadist Smurf caused gales of laughter among the 12 year-old set, and you have to know who Uza the duck from Educational TV is to understand the Rambo-like image of “Uza and Uzi”. Similarly, you must be familiar with the wandering boy Marco from the children’s cartoon series The Heart to understand why he’s searching Google for “mother”.

This year, Passover was the theme for the T:Market’s promotional photo shoot, with matza anad gefilte fish playing an important part of the styling.

Photo by Ben Palhov

This karate chopping matza-mauling cutie sports a top by TwentyFourSeven…
Photo by Ben Palhov

Fashion house Chop Shop offers more conventional wares in an unconventional setting…

Haifa-based GhosTown were selling off their Winter 2012 collection, featuring designs by Broken Fingaz Crew…

Hand to Hand, based in Paris and Tel Aviv, offer a glimpse into their screen-printing process and, if you visit their Facebook page, into the ink drawing process as well.

Gelada Studio express their Russian origins with a nod and wink to Soviet realism…
Photo by Ben Palhov

And judging from the many Press & TV clips on their Facebook page, their Socialist-styled themes have resonated with the Israeli celebrity set!

There are another 30-odd exhibitors at the T:Market, which continues running through the weekend, with a full exhibitor list available at Dice Marketing. If you can, get on over there and if not, check out the T:Market page on Facebook.

I’m posting early as today (Thursday) is the eve of Passover’s second holiday. Chag Sameach to all!

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Foto Friday – Assaf Pinchuk images Israel

It’s the morning of Erev Pessach, Passover eve, and the country is in its final involuntary shopping, cooking and cleaning spasm. This evening, a blessed quiet will fall over Israel and for a few moments, all will be clean, orderly and in place.

That sense of balance, of everything being as it should be — dare I say it, of seder — is present in these images by commercial photographer Assaf Pinchuk, who specializes in architectural and industrial subjects. In his work, Pinchuk gives us a glimpse of the Israel we aspire to be. Even the unruly building blocks and winding streets of an old Tel Aviv neighborhood fall into place…

A office building lobby becomes a composition of light, shadow, contrasting colors and structural elements…

The city’s famously dynamic night life is omnipresent in the saturated green of a rest room…

A Tel Aviv rooftop apartment glows against a darkening sky…

In daylight, through the windowshades, the harsh Mediterranean sun paints white walls with shadow…

As always, the best days end with sunset on the Tel Aviv beach.

Assaf Pinchuk studied photography at Hadassah College, Jerusalem, after which he interned and worked with Cologne-based photographer Hans-Georg Esch. Together with wife and business partner Miri, Pinchuk opened his own studio in 1998, with the goal of producing unique, dynamic, smart and inspiring images for a client list that includes some of Israel’s leading companies and institutions.

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Foto Friday – The Innovators Way

The Innovators Way is a new photo exhibition showcasing 27 researchers whose innovations, developed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, improve quality of life and human welfare worldwide in fields such as health, safety, environment and nutrition.

The exhibition celebrates the work of those researchers whose initiatives have led to commercial products on the market today.

These creative initiatives came about as the result of intensive and wide-ranging scientific research, followed by patent registration, commercialization and finally marketing by Israeli and international companies.

None of this would have been possible without Yissum – the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University. Yissum is solely responsible for the commercialization of innovations and technologies originating at the university. The company was among the first of its kind in the world when it was established in 1964, and is today ranked among the world’s 15 leading companies in this field.

To date, Yissum has registered more than 7,000 patents on more than 2,000 inventions, and has established 72 spin-off companies.

The scientists and innovations documented in the new exhibition include:

Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch (right) and Prof. Nachum Kedar established the foundations for the introduction of genes for extended fruit shelf-life into standard tomato cultivars, turned cherry tomatoes into a global commodity, and developed the cluster tomatoes. (The original research was conducted jointly with Prof. Yosef Mizrahi of Ben Gurion University and Dr. Ehud Kopeliovitch. The seeds are produced and manufactured by Vilmorin (France), Monsanto (USA), Syngenta (Switzerland) and Bayer (Germany).

Prof. Marta Weinstock-Rosin who developed Exelon, a medicine prescribed for people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. Exelon can slow the progression of the disease in a significant proportion of patients and improve cognitive function in some subjects. Exelon is manufactured by Novartis (Switzerland).

Professor of Chemistry David Avnir, developer of Sol-Gel Technology for the formation of new materials which combine the properties of glasses or ceramics with the properties of organic and biological compounds. Applications of Sol-Gel Technology have been developed in the fields of optics, catalysis, sensing, polymers, biochemistry and pharmacy. Many researchers at the Hebrew University have participated in the various developments. Sol-Gel Technologies, Inc. (Israel) was established to commercialize products based on these newly invented materials, and is active especially in the fields of dermatology and agriculture.

Prof. Alexander Vainstein, the Wolfson Family Professor of Floriculture, who developed the MemoGenetechnology which enables the creation of new traits in plants and the enhancement of agricultural crops through genetic modification. MemoGene is a groundbreaking process for targeted and site-specific plant genetic modification, using highly innovative novel tools for genomic modification. The technology, which was patented jointly by Yissum and Danziger Innovations (Israel), is applicable to all plants.

Prof. Shmuel Peleg has developed technologies upon which two Israeli startups were founded. One technology creates panoramic stereo images from photographs taken by an ordinary camera, which has been commercialized by HumanEyes Technologies (Israel). The second is a technique for video synopsis, which enables hours of video surveillance footage to be viewed in minutes, and which has been commercialized by BriefCam. [Full disclosure: I work for BriefCam and know Prof. Peleg personally. I also thought the photo really captured his spirit.]

The exhibition’s photographer, Nati Shohat, is the founder of Flash 90, a photographic agency that supplies images to newspapers, magazines and other customers in Israel and abroad. Shohat’s news photography and artistic and portrait work have been exhibited in many venues and in publications such as Stern Magazine, Paris Match, Le Monde, Time and others.

Hebrew University has about 1,000 senior faculty members and a student body of approximately 23,000. To date, it has conferred over 120,000 degress. The University has some100 research centers and more than 4,000 research projects. Faculty members and alumni have been awarded 8 Nobel Prizes, 1 Fields Medal, 269 Israel Prizes, 12 Wolf Prizes, 18 EMET Prizes and 41 Rothschild Prizes. Founders include Chaim Weizmann, Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Chaim Nachman Bialik.

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Foto Friday – Haifa Flower Show preview

Spring has definitely sprung. No more sudden snowstorms for us! The sun is shining, dogs are shedding their winter coats (believe me, I know) and a new crop of wildflowers decorates the fields, streets and sidewalks. With perfect timing, the city of Haifa will relaunch the annual Haifa International Flower Show, which will take place during the Passover holiday week at Park Hecht from April 7th-14th.

The nine halls and 25 outdoor exhibits will feature works by international and Israeli designers, including 14 top designers from Zuidkoop Natural Projects of the Netherlands.

Israeli firm O*GE, the creative directors, architects and lead designers of the Flower Show, have created nine huge exhibition halls — each one a world unto itself — which will feature flowers of all kinds, flown in from all corners of the world: rare flowers, genetically engineered flowers, wild flowers, greenhouse-grown flowers, dwarf trees, flower topiary, flower carpets and more.

The more than 500,000 blooms will be presented in very different environments: World of Flowers, Land of the Rising Sun, Hanging Garden, World of the Senses, Secret Garden, World of Fantasy, and World of Water. These photomontage illustrations give a sense of how amazing the show promises to be.

This exhibition covers an area of 30 dunam (​​7.5 acres) making this the largest flower exhibition in Israel’s history. In addition to the the flower worlds, visitors can enjoy wandering through herb gardens, a flower market and attend various workshops. Spectacular lighting effects at night will give additional enchantment. For more information: http://www.haifaflower.co.il/

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Foto Friday – Purim Costumes, Israel style

In our globalized wired world, its very hard to find a truly Israeli Purim costume. Gone are the times when little girls would dream of dressing up like Queen Esther and little boys live like wicked Haman for the day. Needless to say, the era of home-made dress-up has also passed — though many families do invest in having a seamstress whip up a bespoke fairy princess gown or two — and importers like Shoshi Zohar make their fortune each year at Purim time.

Nonetheless, a thorough perusal of the Shoshi Zohar online catalogue did yield some particularly Israeli fare, starting with this little Mossad agent…

I’m sure, despite the red Star of David on her cap, that this naughty nurse wasn’t trained by Magen David Adom…

This fellow seems as perplexed as I was at the idea of buying this get-up as a costume, when the real deal is easily available only a 15 minute drive away…

Shoshi Zohar actually has a whole section entitled “Costumes for Religious People” and here we do find some sentimental remnants of yesteryear’s costumes. Although the Megillah’s characters were curiously absent, I did find two out of the four Matriarchs. Here’s Rivka (Rebecca), her gown bedecked with camel appliques…

And Aharon (Aaron), the High Priest!

It was also nice to discover that local drugstore chain Super-Pharm had produced a series of instructional videos for the holiday about how to do face makeup and while Smurfette isn’t Israeli, the long-standing affection for the Dardasim, as they’re called here, is very much part of our local popular culture.

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