Photography

Air Canada En Route – Washington, D.C. & Montreal

Collection of The Diaspora Museum (Beit Hatfutsot), Tel Aviv, Israel

Photo Shoots: Creative portraits & pottery

I was in grade school when I received my first camera, a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 20; immediately personalizing it with a funky, retro sticker on top – so de rigueur in the 70s. I loved the removable Magicube Flash, a dinky piece of hardware that crackled and popped. That Instamatic was my beloved possession, tagging along everywhere I went – to the beach, summer camp, family road trips, journeys across the ocean to visit relatives.

Then I graduated to the masterful (but bulky) Nikons and loved toying with the lenses, settings and filters. I experimented with slides, color film and infrared. But most smitten with duochrome, I dove into a deep love affair with black and white film, a romance which continues until today. When a friend and I traveled to Mexico many years ago (not my first visit), I knew that it was a country steeped in dazzling color. Which is precisely why I consciously stocked up on black & white film only, so intent was I to neutralize the palette and capture the spirit and soul of the people. So glad I did…

Learning to develop my photographs, spending hours in a darkened lab, it was all an intrinsic part of my photographic journey. I will always appreciate having undergone these deeply formative experiences that are, due to digital photography, so hard to come by these days.

I loved my Nikons, the lenses, the filters, the film. I finally came around to a digital Nikon and loved that one as well. I didn’t even mind hauling around and traveling with the large camera bag, treating it with regular care and maintenance, so grateful I was of the precious photographic bounty inside.

But then I fell through a bridge, displaced my sacrum and compromised my very core. I learned (the hard way) that my body could no longer tolerate carrying heavy weight; after some experimentation, I self-diagnosed my allowable weight limit: 1.5 kg. I tearfully bade my Nikon contingent goodbye, selling it online to an anonymous buyer. I went from an SLR back to a pocket camera – albeit a digital one. Gone were my zoom and macro lenses; gone, the days of peering from a distance, capturing a sweet and mostly unseen moment from afar.

While I travel, spend time in nature or with family, at festivals and milestones, my camera is a mainstay. As long as I’m not bogged down by other essentials adding up to my 1.5kg upper limit, I don’t leave home without it.

Much like in other areas of my life, I learned to re-calibrate and modify. I altered my perception of what constitutes photography. And I continue to pose, click, shoot, snap, edit, alter and improve on my images as before. I do it, as I always have, out of a deep and abiding love for the art.

If you’d like to work with me, or hire me for a photo shoot, please get in touch!