Foto Friday
Harry’s already written about his annoyance with the recent New York Times article on Tel Aviv — with its fairly dismissive mention of Jerusalem — but it did get me to go back and look at the article again, with its simply fabulous photos of Tel Aviv, taken by veteran New York Times photographer Rina Castelnuovo.
Rina is Israeli-born, and has been working for the Times for some 25 years, while her husband, Jim Hollander, is another great photographer who works for Reuters. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rina off and on throughout the years, although our work together tends to focus on real estate and great homes in Israel, which isn’t quite as creative or stimulating as most of her regular work.
Here are a few more pieces taken from her shoot in Tel Aviv, some shots that didn’t make it into the NYT slide show, but showing just how perfectly she has her finger on the pulse that is the Israeli beach experience in the summer.
Foto Friday – BGU Through Dani Machlis’ Eyes
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Foto Friday, General, Life
Dani Machlis is staff photographer for Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. You might think his job entails an never-endlng parade of faculty head shots and donor dinners, but in fact, it affords him endless creative opportunties. Sent to shoot the new Alon Building for High Tech on the University’s Marcus Family Campus, Machlis came back with a stunning composition in blue and gold.
Photo by Dani Machlis
A visit to the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at the University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, yielded an image that captures the tactile satisfaction of hands-on research.
Photo by Dani Machlis
The last image, entitled “Wow”, placed first in the news and features category of American University’s May photo competition. Machlis captured the fire dancers in motion amidst the clatter of plates and cutlery, at the University’s recent Board of Governors’ meeting. The din of dinner fades into the background and Machlis captures BGU’s essence: a magical oasis of advancement and technology emerging, mirage-like, out of the desert night.
Photo by Dani Machlis
Foto Friday – Sderot Through the Chameleon’s Eye
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Life, Movies, War
A lot of stuff happened this week in Sderot that you wouldn’t have expected. An antique car rally blew into town, for instance. Who knew? An international film festival opened. I wasn’t there but fortunately, photographer Rafael Ben-Ari was, and this week’s Foto Friday comes courtesy of his news photo syndicate, Chameleons Eye.
My last encounter with Sderot was the inauguration of a portable above-ground bomb shelter. And yes, five minutes after we arrived on site, there was an air raid and we had 15 seconds to run into a dingy stairwell for shelter, (the port-o-shelter not having yet arrived). Some interesting thoughts flash through your mind when you’re struggling to climb over a fence in heels while your bosses sprint vigorously ahead with nary a look backwards, none of them printable. Thank goodness there was someone – a photographer as it happened – who turned around to lend me a hand. A hero. 10 minutes later we were all back on the street again. That’s life in Sderot.
So, in between the rockets, here’s what went down this week. The 7th London to Jerusalem JNF Car Rally started in England on May 18th. Participants drove via France, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, then came by ship to Israel and toured around the country. On Sunday they visited Sderot. Yesterday they were in Jerusalem. I know because I saw this particular car. My cab driver and I were both very thrilled.
Actually, come to think of it, I had another encounter with Sderot this year, when the folks from Hangar 11 at the Tel Aviv Port invited Sderot shop owners to bring their businesses to Tel Aviv for a few days. I couldn’t find a thing I wanted to buy until I saw the woman selling subscriptions to the Sderot Cinematheque. The deal was that they would donate it to a schoolchild in my name. I was charmed by the idea of fostering the next generation of effete little cinema snobs, not to mention keeping a kid off the streets and out of harm’s way, and immediately purchased one.
This week’s 7th Cinema South Film Festival premiered three new Israeli films at the Cinematheque and a host of local celebs made an appearance. Rafael has pictures of them on his site. He also has plenty of pictures of rocket blasts and their physical, political and spiritual aftermaths. But I liked this photo because it’s just a bunch of people having a good time.
This coming week will be Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. In recent years, this holiday tradition of not eating meat has been coopted by Israel’s dairy companies, who’ve turned it into a cheese eating orgy. But down in the southern region of Hof Ashkelon where Rafael lives, grain still ripens in the fields as the moon waxes, becoming ready to be gathered – just as it was 3000 years ago – and you understand this is a holiday of early summer harvest.
Foto Friday – Guy Raivitz’s Back Yard
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Life
Guy Raivitz is an Israeli freelance photojournalist who’s worked all around the local and foreign media. He also does pro bono work for social conscience organizations, including the UNICEF Angola mine awareness project, and Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation in Namibia. He’s trained his sharp lens on Israel as well – he was a staff photographer for “Haaretz”, among other publications – and produced a powerful portraiture series of people in soup kitchens.
Today’s Foto Friday presents four works from Guy’s latest project – a soon-to-be published book documenting Israeli reality called “Back Yard“. Each is a stand-alone work, but there is also a logic to the way he’s set them up on his website, in pairs.
Maybe its because I commuted on that freeway for six and a half years – and sat trapped in so many traffic jams while it was being built – but I found this combination strangely moving.
Guy has captured the craziness that engulfs the country on Yom Ha’atzmaut, when we tread a fine line between revelry and violence. The next day, the city lies quiet, covered by a layer of soot and shaving cream.
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