Artist statement
As a concept artist and a religious photographer, I see my work as a mission. My job is to have my camera lens bring out things that are hidden in nature and in people. Like a composer, who, affecting others’ ears, exposes his innermost feelings through music, so too the photographer expresses his feelings and thoughts through his art that affects others’ eyes.
My works are directed mostly at presenting real-life situations, occurring in the Jewish world, on the inner aspects of a man’s soul and in seeing the future by contemplating the past from the day of Creation and to the present. From there I seek the points of light, connection oneness with the one being photographed.
As someone who was born in the Soviet Union, I experienced the impressive Western culture and developed a taste for aesthetic beauty. I lived through the fall of communism in Russia, and I also lived on an Israeli Kibbutz in my youth. Those dramatic events, as well as coming of age in the Israeli on the one hand, and search for a meaning in life on the other, whetted my sensitivity to the environment and attention to detail, which are essential for photography, which started out as a hobby but turned into a profession.
The eighteen years that I have been working as a photographer saw my making my way to Judaism. Pondering and investigation of the world around me brought me to discover the truth and to recognize the Creator. This process found its expression in my work, which reflects the longing of the soul to become one with its Maker.
Stills photography is an essential tool. I use graphic processing when needed. Photomontage that makes use of letters helps hone the message, gleaned from Torah study. Video art, performing art and the conceptual text are all additional tools of expression, necessary to voice the message to the viewer and to the listener.
Picture titles are a fruit of much mental labor. They are intended to connect the photograph and the spiritual and moral meanings of time, place and character of the elements, expressed in the picture. In some cases they link modern issues with the words of the Torah and the Talmud.
The language of documentary photography is the most accurate portrayal of reality. I use it to connect monotony of everyday life with its true goal, and to achieve its thorough completion. By choosing my subject, place, its actual and hinted names, the title, I walk the path with the camera being the tool of the modern alchemist. Camera helps me understand things and innovate. It’s a mystical tool that helps decipher the most intriguing and interesting of all puzzles – life itself.
My camera is my pen, its sensors are my parchment, the light is the holiness and the ink, the photographer is the narrator of the tale. He takes pictures in order to do good, to influence and to bring closer.