PhotoGraphics of Israel • • • BACK • • • NEXT |
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| DREAMS
OF ISRAEL "This is real photography!" a critic said at the opening
of my exhibition in Copenhagen recently. He compared my photos to images done
by world famous Hungarian photographers of the last century who are some of
the icons of the medium. These words were very flattering and heartwarming to
hear. I hope that even when I don't add the word "impression" to the
title of my work, it will always be personal, emotional, and empathetic toward
the subject. Impressions of Israel is not "real photography". Rather
it has been an experiment for me. I was hoping to make these images timeless
by emphasizing the composition; by increasing or decreasing the contours, colors
and saturation; by adding brush strokes and other kinds of special effects.
Expressing feelings, thoughts and memories this way has been a very exciting
experiment for me. As a documentary photographer, my goal has always been to
tell stories visually of "whom, what, when, where and what happened".
This new way of working has allowed me to expand my picture-making vocabulary
- to tell stories in a very different way. Even so, I hope my experiments won't
allow the viewer forget that the image began as a negative on a piece of celluloid.
The original idea for photographing Israel was to follow in the footsteps of
a wonderful Hungarian writer, Gyorgy G. Kardos. Kardos wrote a novel: Avraham's
Good Week whose story was set at the time of establishment of the State of Israel.
Kardos was seventy years old when we went to Israel together. We were searching
for his roots and trying to separate fact from fiction. Kardos could not finish
our book. He died last year. Because I miss him, I preferred to make my "real
photographs" into something different. By manipulating the images with
a computer and printing them on hand made paper, they are not paintings, they
are not watercolors, they are not even "real photographs". For me
they are my impressions of a very special journey with a dearly departed friend
that have opened new horizons in my career as a photographer. – Tamas Revesz |
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