Foto Friday – Behind the lens with Israel Press

January 9, 2009 - 5:47 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Life, War 

If a news photographer does the job right, they will render themselves anonymous. Viewers will focus on the image itself and forget that there was someone who created that image. But there are people behind the lens, often a phalanx of them, roasting in the hot sun in hopes of spotting Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Refaeli or any other visiting or local celebrity; standing around for hours while police drag the Yarkon river at a crime scene; or, as they have for the second week in a row, laying their lives on the line on the Israel-Gaza border.

Getting the shot, however, involves a great deal of hanging out, watching and waiting, and shutterbugs might click off a few shots of their own to stave off the boredom. Often, the subject is the person standing next to them.

tomeriko_gaza_press_by_koko_2Photo credit: Koko

Tomeriko, photo editor and staff photographer at Yediot Aharonot, is also the founder of a Israel Press, a Flickr page where Israeli news photographers upload the pictures they take of one another. Taken as a whole, the pictures document a tiny brotherhood – including a few sisters – of people who know each other very well.

tomeriko_gaza_press_by_koko_4Photo credit: Koko

“I started it because I had a lot of pictures of photographers from all sorts of events and didn’t know what to do with them,” explains Tomeriko. “At first, I thought I would send the pictures individually but I also wanted other people to see them. So I started the Flickr page and uploaded about 1000 pictures. When the other photographers heard about it, they started to send pictures to me. It’s kind of a family album.”

tomeriko_gaza_press_by_koko_5Photo credit: Koko

“It came from boredom,” laughs photographer Gilad Kavalerchik. “If you look at the beginning of the album, you’ll see a lot of pictures from football games and so on. But it’s become a way of having a souvenir of an event.”

Right now is not at all boring and Kavalerchik is running between jobs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the front, where he managed to snap a few such mementos.

tomeriko_gaza_press_by_gilad-kavalerchik_2Photo credit: Gilad Kavalerchik

tomeriko_gaza_press_by_gilad-kavalerchik_1Photo credit: Gilad Kavalerchik

Tomeriko emphasizes that Israel Press is a non-commercial enterprise, and isn’t intended for people to promote themselves or their news organization. He is very careful, however to credit each image, and provide contact information. He’s also divided Israel Press into disciplines – news, sports, camera-persons, reporters and of couse, the celebrity press. (The t-shirt in this photo says “Caution- Paparazzi before you”).

tomeriko_caution_paparazziPhoto credit: Tomeriko

Some of the photos are exercises in photographic composition.

tomeriko_michael-kremer-and-boazPhoto credit: Tomeriko

Sometimes, they are opportunities to try out in-camera effects, as in this picture of veteran photographers Koko and Moshe Shai, at the starting line of the Tel Aviv night run this past summer.

tomeriko_koko-and-moshe-shaiPhoto credit: Tomeriko

Others document the camaraderie of a particular event – like the DiCaprio-Refaeli paparazzi stakeout – where photographers camped out for days. “This is our work. This is our shared experience,” says Koko.

tomeriko_paparazzi_coffeePhoto credit: Tomeriko

tomeriko_paparazzi_readingPhoto credit: Tomeriko

Israel Press is a closed group with membership limited to Israeli photographers both here and abroad. Says Tomeriko: “You have to register to comment. Of course, people are interested in the behind-the-scenes of the media and we want people to see the pictures, but it’s really for us.”

Since the war started, Tomeriko has added some new photos of what the front is like behind the camera. “We’ve gotten some e-mails from people who want to give us encouragement, which is very nice. I posted them on the site.”

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Foto Friday – Local Testimony

January 2, 2009 - 11:59 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General 

One of the troubling things about photography, especially at times like these, is that a picture is worth a thousand words – and not always the right ones. Israel’s military operation against Gaza is only entering its seventh day, and already, hundreds of thousands of images have flooded the web, the papers, the airwaves. Some are powerful, others are weak. Some are informative, others deceptive. Some are strong enough to make a statement on their own, others serve to illustrate text. And so many seem besides the point right now — but it may be too early to tell.

Sometimes, even in a networked world of instant communications and citizen journalists, a bit of time is needed before passing judgment on what makes a good news photo. And so, each year, concurrent with the international World Press Photo exhibition, Israel hosts its own photojournalism competition, called Local Testimony. The pictures chosen capture moments with both a media value and a human significance, and is also a retrospective on the events of the past year as reflected in its main categories: news, culture and art, nature and environment, portraits, daily life and sports.

local_testimony_myhammed_muheisen

The winning photo is by AP photographer Muhammed Muheisen was taken at the village of Bil’in in June 2008. It shows a Palestinian youth running to avoid tear gas grenades that were fired to disperse a demonstration against the separation barrier.

local_testimony_felix_lupa

The winning photo series, Homeless, is by independent photographer Felix Lupa, who documented the lives of two homeless people living in an abandoned car in Tel-Aviv: blind foreign worker Boris, aged 54, and his self-appointed caretaker Genady, aged 70.

local_testimony_dudi_vaaknin

The winning photo in the sports category was taken by Dudi Vaaknin, a staff photographer at Ynet and Israel Hayom. It’s a picture of Beitar Jerusalem soccer player Yoav Ziv, and is pretty self-explanatory.

Up until last week, going by the topics covered in the exhibit, Israel was preoccupied with domestic politics, a stalemated security situation, social welfare issues and a hefty amount of navel-gazing. Now, it’s the war. There’s no telling what images will come to represent this new year when it ends. What’s for certain is that Israel is a fantastic canvas for photojournalists and that Local Testimony 2009 will continue to present the best of the best.

Local Testimony is on at the Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv until January 11, after which it moves up to the Open Museum at Tel Hai until mid-February. The full exhibition can be viewed here as well.

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