Holga Fun

This past Sunday I had a booth at the Israel Expo in Irvine, this big annual bash celebrating all things Israeli. It's been going on forever (I remember, as a kid, manning the hamburger booth my synagogue used to have there). Recently they've added a "Simcha" section, where all type of event vendors can strut their stuff and people could check out their options.

There were around ten other photographers there, and thanks to my wife we had a really unique booth. Cool people were met, people with good taste were wowed, people with bad taste walked on, brochures were given out (I'll post them soon), and good times were had by most.

I shot a few polaroids (which I gave away) and some more with my new fancy Holga. Which I'm pretty sure I screwed up on. You see a Holga is a dinky little medium format camera with a fixed lens, one shutter speed, two apertures, and approximate focussing. You also have a choice of square or rectangle photos. And while I thought I was shooting square, it turns out that the whole time it was on the rectangular setting. So not only were my compositions all off, I also lost 4 photos per roll. And that is plain evil. Focussing is approximate, and for the most part I either missed focus or forgot to focus entirely (I'll get used to it).

One sun roasted polaroid of our booth coming right up. (I'll have the Holga shots developed in a few weeks or so.). It looked a lot better in real life :)

Here a some from my first few rolls with the Holga. Yeah, pretend those are square. And in focus.

Eig8th Day

There's this Rabbi. His name is Shmuli Marcus. And he rocks. In fact he rocks so good, he started a rock band. It's a joint effort with him and his brother Bentzi, with a bunch of (very good) random musicians thrown in the mix.

He also is the Rabbi of Chabad of Cypress, creator of Farbrengen magazine (now Soulwise), runs a Hebrew High program (Hebrew school for high school kids) which is the model that many use when trying to start something similar, and does a bunch of other holy stuff.

A real Renaissance Rabbi. And a real (really) splendid dude. He also has the good sense to hire a hotshot photographer for the cover shoot.

The name if the band is Eighth Day, and they're pretty darn good. Check 'em out.

This one is a crop of the above, and was my choice for the album cover. It wasn't chosen (probably for a good reason), but I still love it.

Here is what the final design looks like (designed by Uri Kelman)

After said shoot, we went back into the studio for some live action shots.

I did get to hear parts of two songs. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Geekspeak: Shot on D700 (gasp), 28mm 2.8 (manual focus), 35mm f/2, Sigma 50mm 1.4

Ancient of Days

In certain circles I am considered to be hot stuff. The circles are quite small, but they exist. Now I'm sure you're scratching your head trying to figure out why in the world anyone would consider me hot stuff. Let me debefuddle you.

My mother (happy mothers day!) is a Carlebach. The Carlebach family is an old and pretty well known name in the Jewish world. Historically they had many great Rabbis in Germany and surrounding countries. My grandfather was quite the scholar and was twins with one of the most famous Jewish composers of all time, Shlomo Carlebach. "Uncle Shlomo", as we call him, was also a tremendous scholar and brought an excitement about Judasim to thousands of Jews. They even made a broadway musical about him "Souldoctor" (which I have not yet seen).

My mother's mother (happy mothers day!) is a Schneerson. The Schneerson family comes from Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (his son was called Schneur-son) also known as the first Lubavitch Rebbe. He started and was the first "Rebbe" (grand Rabbi) of the Chabad movement, which now has thousands of communities around the world. We come directly from the third Chabad Rebbe (known as the Tzemach Tzedek), as well as from another great Chassidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitchak of Berditchov.

Also, my great grandparents ran an orphanage during world war two which was very instrumental in saving the lives of many many young Jews. I'll stop there :)

My mother (may she live to be well over a thousand) raised us to be aware of where we came from, but not think it made us in any way better than anyone else. A bit special, but no better. I fact I wasn't even aware of how awesome it was until some people found out about it in Yeshiva and were like totally in awe.

I have a point, I promise.

For the holiday of Purim, my Bubby (mother's mother, may she live a long and healthy life) came to California and brought a Megillah (a handwritten Book of Esther, which we read on Purim) which was written by the fourth Chabad Rebbe, known as the Rebbe MaHarash (Rabbi Shmuel). He only wrote three or four megillahs, one of which is in the Library in New York and the other, by Bubby has. It's a beautiful scroll, in remarkable condition for its age (around two hundred years old) with really wonderful handwriting. The Rebbe wasn't a scribe, but his doctor told him he should do detailed work with his hands. So he wrote one Megillah for each of his children.

One of his grandchildren had epilepsy, which in those days caused one to be shunned by most of the community. People tend to fear what they don't understand. Especially epilepsy, as it could look like you're possessed. My great grandparents (especially my great grandmother) took him under their wings, even as an adult. They fed him, bathed him, and treated him as one of their family. In gratitude he gave them his fathers Megillah (which he got from his father). Which made its way down the family and now belongs to my Bubby

Now, my Bubby is very protective of this Megillah. She does not publicize its whereabouts, or if she's going to travel with it or not. Unfortunately there are those who covet these types of objects (do they not read the ten commandments?!). And would go through great lengths to get their hands on it.

Before Purim, we went to the local Chabad Cheder (chassidic boys school) to let the kids see the Megillah and hear my Bubby speak about the Megillah and her family.

Here's how that went:

One of the rules is that only family member can read from the Megillah. I did that for the first time and it was quite an experience.

Geekspeak: Shot with my Nikon F4, my 28mm, Delta 400 pushed to 1600, and a few with hp5 pushed to 800.

Why

warning: many words coming up. feel free to skip the soliloquy, and head straight to the pictures. Why. It’s a question I get asked a few hundred times a day. That’s what I get for having a five year old (and a four year old). And it gets pretty deep.

Zevi: “Why did you go through the alley?”

Me: “You’re not allowed to make a left onto Linden from Carson”.

“How do you know?”

“Well, there’s no turning lane and a “no left turn” sign”.

“Why”

“Well, they don’t want people using Linden instead of Atlantic”

“Why would someone do that”

“Sometimes Atlantic has a lot of traffic, so people want to use the side streets.”

“So?”

“The people that live on Linden don’t want people driving fast down their street.”

“But what about the people that live on Linden, won’t they drive fast?”

“No, Zevi people that live here understand that they shouldn’t drive fast on their own block.”

And the conversation would have gone on, but we got arrived home (thank G-d).

See what happened? From a few innocent “why’s” we got to one of the main principles behind the free market and private prooperty.

But as we age, we sometimes (pretty much always) forget to ask why and just do things because “that’s what we do”.

Every “what” has a “why” behind it. And that “why” turn into another “what” with its very own “why”. And that goes on. an on. For a very long time.

In Kabballah this is refered to as a body and a soul. Even souls have a body and a soul.

When I first started documenting my family I was obsessed with “beautiful shots”. You know, the close up portraits with beautiful blurred out backgrounds.

Those.

After some time, it occured to me that while I had many photos of what my kids looked like, I didn’t really know what to do with them. And even worse I was finding that while they contained beautiful faces, looking at them they didn’t really contain many memories.

So the why question reared its beautiful head and had me thinking for a bit (doesn't happen very often). Why am I taking all these photos? Ten years down the line what kind of photos do I want to look at. I’d like to say it was an epiphany, but the process took some time (and is still going on).

I want memories. I want photos that bring me back to the moment captured, that remind me of not what my kids looked like but what they acted like. How they interacted. The cute/annoying things they do. Their little idiosyncracies that make them such individuals.

I still want beautiful photos, but not for prettiness sake. More to remember how beautiful my life is. How lucky I am to be given the gift of raising these little people. How amazingly beautiful and kind my wife is.

And I want to do this for other people as well. These are the photos that really matter. Yeah, I could make you and your family look like rockstars, with awesome backdrops and beautiful lighting. But down the line what do you want to remember? Do you want to sit down with your grandkids and look at an album of their parents? Of how they were as kids, how they got dirty, what they ate, how they ate? What they wore (not for a photoshoot, but what they wore every day), and how they played?

I do.

These were all taken three days before Pesach. Yeah, the lighting isn't perfect and no one is looking at the camera and smiling. But why would I want that? (Well, maybe once in a while:))

Enjoy.

Geekery: All shot on Arista Edu 100 (el cheapo film), developed through Walmart (yeah, I know I chewed them out here, but they're okay for some film) and scanned by me. Random fact: Instead of searching my website for a post, I usually just google my name and some words I know are in that post. So for that previous link I searched: Zalmy Walmart, and got this.They name laptop coolers after me, I'm that cool.

Quickshoot

Quick shoot results are in! Yay! Okay, I expected more people to be interested, but it was fun nonetheless :)I'm going to be having a booth at the Isral Expo in Irvine. If you're in the area drop by and say hi!

The Pribyls - Documentary Family Session

I have SOOOO much to write about this shoot but I don't want my mediocre writing skills to take away from the awesomeness of this family, so I'll make it short.

Family documentary photography is really where I want my business to be heading. It's something I feel is important, real, and not nearly as common as it should be. Recently I was given the opportunity to shoot this absolutely delightful family in Santa Rosa. This is exactly what the family does on a normal Monday. What they wear, what they eat, where they go, what they play etc. And as the years go by they will have these awesome memories documented, not just what they looked like but how they were. How cool is that?

Yeah, I thought so.

Enjoy, and thanks for looking.

We started off with some homeschooling (them, not me :))

Learning makes you hungry (well everything makes ME hungry, but we're talking about normal people here), so mom makes some yummy looking cheese sandwiches (wherever I go, cheese sandwiches seem to be following me).

I think it was someones birthday here (mom's sis?) so they all (actually we) sang happy birthday (well Frank sang happy boothday, and I think he thinks we were all laughing at him...)

Hannah looooves dressing Violet up, doing her hair etc. And she has very pretty hair. All I noticed was that coffee though. I love coffee.

Back to some reading drills with mommy. Schools cool, but how awesome is snuggling up with mommy and reading some?

Reading is knowledge and knowledge is power. Hence the biceps.

That. Is. A. Big. Book.

I love how all the siblings play together!! It's really sweet.

Off to the chopping block (it's not easy, I tried, and, well, it wasn't pretty). If I was that block I would not underestimate the power of a Frank. Even if he's seven.

Getting the mail was a very important daily ritual. To be met with shoed feet and appropriately attired hair.

Jasmine was in awe over mom's wisdom. Yes, holding those yellow flowers under your chin will make your chin yellow (sadly it won't make my beard blonde).

And off to the front yard for some ballage and rideage.

Jordan would be proud (check out that wrist motion!)

I'm not sure if she made it in but I'll lead you on :)

They have this park nearby which makes me want to pick up and move. Now.

This is one of the very few posed shots we did. Figured we'd get one or two nice family shots (the other's at the end). How cute are they?!

Mom's sister (birthday girl?) and her family came to join. She's laughing at me.

These ducks were scary. I'm serious. For some reason growing up we had a duck as a pet (bad idea) and it terrorized me.

I was told I was doing a good job.

This is Jeney's grandson. It's amazing how much everyone oogles over him, (not that I blame them, and how edible are those cheeks?!)

How handsome is David? (and how awesome is his hair?)

For some reason I'm doubting he caught it...

And for some last family photos... (I'm already missing this family)

How proud is grandma?

Normally I'd finish there. But the family only asked for two shots. The mail one and one with me in it. As they put it: "If we are documenting this one day, then you are very big part of it."

Good point.