Foto Friday – Guy Prives Meets 100 Strangers
Filed under: Art, Blogging, design, Foto Friday, General, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
Guy Prives fell in love with photography while on a long trip to South America and has carried this passion — along with his camera — ever since. “Photography for me is another way to look and see the world from unique and different angles. Ordinary things can become extraordinary when captured through the camera’s lens”.
Prives’ professional work ranges from commercial and fashion photography to portraiture and nature photography. He also teaches photography at the Galitz School of Photography. His latest personal project is entitled 100 Strangers, the goal of which is “to take pictures of 100 different people that I have never met before.”
“100 Strangers” lays out the human tapestry that is Israel’s diverse population. Prives says, “For me, it’s not only the photography itself, but also the story behind the people. Understanding that behind every stranger we encounter for a brief moment, fascinating stories can be hidden.”
So, for example, Prives introduces himself — and us — to Mundir Hussien, a contractor working on a grocery market renovation in Tel Aviv’s trendy Florentine neighborhood. “Every day he calls the municipality to complain about [the dog shit and garbage] but no one listens to him…” Welcome, Mundir, to life in Tel Aviv.
On another outing, Prives meets Kristin Eulitz from Berlin, a student volunteer at The Friedrich Naumann Foundation. “She started a week ago and nowadays meets with Palestinian intellectual representatives from the West Bank in Hebron and Bethlehem…”
Prives tells the story of this elderly mechanic with elegant simplicity, starting with, “In 1949, when Kaduri Rubin arrived to Israel, there was nothing on Shnitzler St. but orchards and a mill. But then the Jewish Agency opened a garage…”
“Ray Turla arrived in Israel from the Philippines… where he was earning $300 per month… So he decided to leave his family, moving to Tel Aviv to nurse an elderly Israeli…”
“Doron Lukach owns a doggy day care… [and is] one of the first pioneers here of this industry…”
Says Prives, “I chose to do this project in Tel Aviv in order to show the plurality of different people in one city. I hope you’re captivated by the photos and their stories.” The full story for each stranger — all of whom, through interlocutor Prives’, become our friends — can be found on his blogsite (with more works on his Facebook page). He hasn’t reached 100 yet so there’s much to look forward to.
Foto Friday – Behind the Urban Outfitters Scene
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Business, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, Pop Culture, Travel
A few weeks ago, Jessica reported that Urban Outfitters had come to Israel for a catalogue shoot. Urban Outfitters has since posted a sneak peek on Facebook at their Early Spring line, which includes some gorgeous shots of some equally gorgeous people making our drab winter surroundings that much brighter.
Along with the fashion shots, there are also some interesting artistic ones as well. That’s because three of the models — Coco Young, Marcel Castenmiller and Jonas Kesseler — are also photographers in their own right. Urban Outfitters who, despite their retro aesthetic, are ever on the cutting edge, asked the trio to document their Israel experience with a Behind the Scenes look.
The result: “Their photos reveal the little unexpected moments that make a trip special – snacks, late nights and the people that you meet for a second but will remember forever.”
The full exhibition is posted on the Urban Outfitters blog, along with interviews with the artists. Coco Young said that the Dead Sea was one of the trip’s highlights.
Photo by Coco Young
She also kept an eye out for unusual fashion statements.
Photo by Coco Young
The Dead Sea was also a highlight for Marcel Castenmiller but his favorite part of the day, he said, was “Getting back to the hotel room and staying up late with Coco and Jonas drinking wine.”
Photo by Marcel Castenmiller
And the absurd little details of a country where a kitchen clock gets tied to a street lamp — for heaven knows what reason — didn’t escape his notice.
Photo by Marcel Castenmiller
Jonas Kesseler said the funniest moment of his trip was arriving at the airport only to be strip-searched on his way into Israel. Glad to hear he kept a sense of humor about it. Certainly, that wit is reflected in his work.
Photos by Jonas Kesseler
Kesseler’s website, by the way, features a photo and drawing essay about his “wandering the endless streets of Tokyo”. Here’s hoping that a new edition — the lighter side of coming hard up against the finite borders of our little country, perhaps? — will turn up in the near future. As for Urban Outfitters, a radio commentator put it best today when he said, “Next time you come, please could you bring a branch of your store with you, too?”
Foto Friday – Dan Haimovich gets Hip(stamatic)
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Food, Foto Friday, General, Life, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
Professional photographer Dan Haimovich left the field several years ago and returned recently to find something completely different. Over the past decade, photography had changed radically by going 100% digital and — thanks to mobile devices and the Internet — becoming part of everyday conversation.
Working with the Hipstamatic app for iPhone, which enables users to take pictures that look like those taken by the analog plastic cameras of the past, Haimovich captures small slices of life in Tel Aviv.
“The app reminded me of the age of film. Under certain lighting conditions it works exactly right and it unleashed something in me — a creative force that I haven’t experienced in a long time. ”
One feature of Hipstamatic , in mimicking its analog predecessor, is to create a slight disparity between what is seen through the viewfinder and the resulting “through the lens” image. It’s a retro touch that Haimovich enjoys. “What’s fascinating is that you have to approximate the frame so things come into it that are unplanned, unexpected.”
Haimovich has been posting the new works on his blog and on Facebook, often with short descriptions about how a particular series came into being. “With with these [Hipstamatic] works I found the ability to connect text to images. I give them short titles that are very intuitive and immediate. I find this combination works very well. Plus, you get feedback which is very nice. It’s very interesting to see what works and what doesn’t.”
Another project since returning to the medium is food photography. He most recently completed shooting a vegetarian cookbook with his sister Miki Haimovich, one of Israel’s premier newswomen (who last week announced she will be stepping down from her position co-anchoring the Channel 10 nightly news to pursue other projects).
To honor these and all other new beginnings, we’ll close with a new broom and wish all Israelity readers the very best for 2011!
Nostalgia Sunday – Tel Aviv on Film
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, design, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Travel
The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive at Hebrew University is a trove of valuable celluloid treasures — several hundred of which have been uploaded to YouTube. The archive ranges from 1911′s The First Film of Palestine to the present and include home movies, short films and full length features.
Tel Aviv was from the outset was seen both as the first Jewish city for the yishuv (the early settlement) and a center of Western culture and technology that would set an example for the entire Middle East. This thoroughly modern city was celebrated on film, as in The White City, a selection of clips shot from 1926 to 1964 and edited together in 1999 in honor of the city’s 90th anniversary.
There is also Tel Aviv in Colors shot in 1938 by an unnamed cinematographer.
And cameraman Fred Dunkel’s view of pre-state Tel Aviv in the 1940s.
Beautiful Tel Aviv in Winter was created in 1950 to mark the city’s 40th anniversary. It was shot by Baruch Agadati, legendary artist, choreographer, man about town and self-styled “Creator of the First Hebrew Sound Film”. Agadati may have made the first Hebrew talkie but this film is silent. Nonetheless, Beautiful Tel Aviv in Winter is a delight for anyone who loves the White City.
Nostalgia Sunday – Bialik Street cultural center
Filed under: design, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Profiles, Travel
Bialik Street is one of Tel Aviv’s little gems. Once an important location for the homes of not only Israel’s national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, but also that of artist Reuven Rubin and Tel Aviv’s first city hall, the street turned dingy and dumpy for many years. It began picking up in popularity in the 1980s when Shenkin Street became trendy and now plans are afoot to turn the whole street into a center of Hebrew culture.
It’s a fitting tribute to Bialik whose house at No. 22 has, since 1937, served as a museum. It’s intention, as the Bialik Association put it was as “[a] national home, a house of the people of Israel in Eretz-Israel and in the Diaspora. Let us make this house into a storeroom for the soul of Hebrew culture; let us never extinguish the light which the poet lit in it! The house will serve as a repository for all the things connected to him and his work; a storeplace for Hebrew folklore, a gathering place for Hebrew writers and a center for Hebrew culture.”
In addition to archives, a library, paintings, furniture and many other items connected to his various activities as a poet, publisher, literary figure and Zionist leader, the house itself is something to see. It was built by architect Joseph Minor in 1925. Minor along with his teacher Alexander Baerwald, was part of a group of architects inspired by the Art and Crafts movement that wished to develop Hebrew architecture. In the case of Bialik House, the result was a building that combined western construction with romantic notions about “Orientalia” – towers, domes, pointed-arch windows and ceramic tiles designed by Zeev Raban, the foremost decorative artist of the day.
In his fine essay about Bialik House, author Yonatan Dubosarsky wrote, “The institutions which had been headed by Bialik located some of their activities in the house. Thus the Hebrew Writers Association was active in Beit Bialik and from there published its monthly magazine, which still exists, Moznayim (“Scales”). The Committee for Language and the Association of Friends of the Hebrew University in Tel Aviv met there. Similarly, courses were organized on behalf of the Vaad Leumi (the pre-state national leadership committee) for groups of youth leaders from the United States. Beit Bialik quickly became a tourist attraction for visitors to Tel Aviv. Teachers began to bring kindergarten and school children – a tradition that has continued to this day, and which over 70 years has brought the majority of Israels children to the house.”
Even if you’re not an Israeli schoolchild, a visit to Bialik House and the street’s other cultural institutions is a delightful way to spend an morning or an afternoon. Plus, once you’re done sightseeing, you can cool down with some iced coffee at Cafe Bialik (No. 2 on the street).
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