June 07, 2013

For old times' sake

About three weeks ago, my wife and I joined a group of French speakers on a "photographic tour" of the Nahalat Binyamin neighborhood in Tel Aviv. 

On Fridays, the Nahalat Binyamin street is crowded by stalls of artists and craftsmen and craftswomen and by jugglers and musicians - as well as the sheshbesh players, elderly dwellers of the neighborhood.

On this occasion, I pulled my M6 Leica from its shelf, my wife went out of her way to buy the Kodak BW400CN film I'm used to and I experienced anew the smell of the film, the meticulous activity of loading of the film, the thought invested in each picture, conscious of its cost and its potential value, the manual focus with the telemeter, the measuring of the light and after that the feeling and hope that there are - literally - latent images, potential masterpieces, in that undeveloped film. The pictures could be good, one or two could be excellent, some will be missed, most will be disappointingly mediocre. This experience was worth the effort. It took me back in time to Cambodia, to Paris, to my first years in Israel, when I would regularly walk with my film camera in search of the photographic experience that Patrice Moracchini ingrained in me.

What a smile!

 Nitzan Gilad, ceramic artist

 RenĂ© Borda, probably the only Bolivian Indian living in Israel... 

Aliya from Dalyat al-Carmel, preparing a Druze pita 

 Oh weren't they angry at me for taking a picture of them while they played! But I didn't want to interrupt them...