Fighting The Light

Missouri Photo Workshop

emil1369 — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:48:58 +0000

My U.S. trip is about to come to an end, after three weeks on the road and one in Macon, MO at the workshop.
Searching for stories in a small midwestern town was more difficult for me, than I expected it to be.
I ended up shooting a story about a Belgian exchange student, as a default, frankly. The irony of a foreigner shooting a story on a foreigner in Macon, after flying half way across the world to a town not far from the geographical center of the U.S.(Lebanon, KS) wasn’t lost on me.
After I was done, two other stories came my way, that would have been much more compelling. One is about a family owned gun store. Anna, in the picture, runs it with the help of her husband, mother and son.
Another piece of exotic Americana that I’ve seen on the month long trip.

emil1369 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:18:09 +0000

Going to the States for a month. Three weeks on a road trip of sorts, and one week at the Missouri Photo Workshop in Macon, MO. Will update the blog sporadically.

emil1369 — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:23:04 +0000

A pashkevil in Mea Shearim, against the “A Star is Born” TV show.

emil1369 — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:46:14 +0000

Such a photogenic cafe…I wish this picture were less prosaic than just a coffeeshop owner in her establishment.

emil1369 — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:13:03 +0000

Man, it is HOT! So the paper wants picture that show just how hot it is. There are no beaches in Jerusalem, so most photogs find a natural spring and get some pictures of kids in mid air, with the spring in the background.

For a change, it was nice to find a spring that not only Haredis go to. Usually when you see pictures from springs in the Jerusalem area, it’s mostly shots of wet peyos. But here,there were actual secular youngsters. I even saw a bikini, I kid you not!
But, of course, the girl wearing it had to resign to sunbathing, because the women’s hour had finished, and she couldn’t go into the water. It’s a hole in the ground, in a deserted Arab village on the side of a mountain, that you have to walk 800 meters down a snake path to get to. But I guess, although you can take the spring out of Jerusalem…you get it.

emil1369 — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:57:51 +0000

I love that feeling that athletes talk about, of being in the zone. Sometimes, you just feel like anything you do works. Working with a reporter on a story about an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish elementary school, I definitely felt that. Everywhere I looked there was a picture to be made.
Unlike other Ultra-Orthodox schools, this one tries to give the kids a more well rounded education, albeit by somewhat rudimentary means.
The first thing I went for was the chess class. Maybe it’s my Russian origins, or the fact that I played the game for 6 years before moving to Israel at age 11, or the fact that any time we passed by Kasparov’s balcony in my native Baku, my dad would make sure to mention it to me, as if I didn’t know already.

There’s something very unusual about Haredi kids playing chess, not to mention the few that stood around the table, rooting and taking interest. It shows an openmindedness that is quite rare and heart-warming.
Their principal may not have raised his eyes once to look at the female reporter interviewing him, but he encourages them to take up chess, ceramics and – incredibly – drama!
So maybe I felt I was in the zone because I didn’t feel the usual rejection and disdain that I get from most Haredi communities, but rather was welcomed with smiles by smart, curious kids who filled me with hope.

emil1369 — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:07:23 +0000

Working on a story in Nabi Samuel, I came across this dog.
He is the most miserable thing in this Arab village, and it’s a close contest, I admit. Standing on a toppled garbage container, chained, barking at everyone . A bark that, I bet, even he finds hardly convincing. His tail between his crooked legs, of which one must have been broken, he shies away from eye contact but doesn’t seem to have forgotten who and what he is. The chain around his neck tells of an owner, but who would chain him? What for? So he wouldn’t attack anyone? Or so he wouldn’t run away?
Maybe it’s there to serve as a reminder of ownership. More for the owner, than for the dog.
I didn’t see any water around him, but when I came back there three days later, he was still around, still standing his post on the garbage container, so I guess somebody is taking care of him. I also saw a female donkey (“jenny”, according to Google?) with a two-three week old son, limping heavily on a badly hurt front leg.
When the jenny passed by the dog, they didn’t acknowledge each other or sympathize for each other’s condition. They must have felt confident leaving that job to the two legged chap standing around, pondering their resemblance.

emil1369 — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:49:07 +0000

Soldiers from the Central Command of the IDF take apart the wall that was put up to guard against sniper fire from neighboring Beit Jala, in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem.. Eight years after it was put up, all the intelligence and estimates show that there’s no point in it anymore, and that it is safe to remove the wall along with the landscape painted onto it, in favor of the view of the hills surrounding the neighborhood.
A whole generation of kids grew up with this wall, and the fear that came with it. Now it is being taken apart, and I wonder if they notice the difference.

Schalit

emil1369 — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:55:08 +0000

It is sad, what’s happened to the Gilad Schalit struggle. It seems, the whole discourse around the issue has reached absurd levels of sentimentality – there seems to be nothing else left, other than emotions and sentiments. Suddenly he’s our son, the nation’s son. We’re supposed to worry for him and long for his return, as if he were, indeed, our offspring.
And that may be fine as a strategy, because a distressed family, such as the Schalits, possibly have no other course of attack. Winning hearts and,well, hearts is probably their only option.
But, sadly, it has reached a point of oversaturation. Aside from the occasional protest act that glides beyond the borders of their overly polite and gentle campaign, the whole thing, along with the marches, the Sabbath welcoming ceremonies, the demos – has become “white noise” to the public, to paraphrase Lisa Goldman’s description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
(I don’t necessarily agree with the description or the views expressed, just giving credit).
In the 2 second sound-bite, ADHD world we live in, the Schalits had no choice, but to appeal to the inherent sentimentality of the Israeli public. But, as the threshold for stimulation kept rising (as with everything else), they couldn’t keep up. Not because they weren’t doing enough, but possibly because they did too much, precisely because they were trying so hard to keep us interested.
Their audience just went numb.

emil1369 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:11:33 +0000

Professor Oz Shapira. Takes veins from limbs and makes bypasses for clogged blood vessels in the heart, for a living. Imagine being able to make a tiny incision, go into a human body with a camera, take out a portion of a vein from an arm or a leg, and then build a bypass in a failing human heart.
I wonder if you feel like G-d, doing that.