Chronicles of an Israeli Reservist
In Israel, a large part of the male population is brought together periodically for a return to military service that contrasts dramatically from their day to day activities. Released after three years of regular service, some Israeli soldiers begin (at the age of 21 – or older for officers,) a civilian life that is interrupted by periods of reserve military duty – in Hebrew – Miluim.
Military reserve duty offers a privileged opportunity to observe a microcosm of Israeli society. Reserve units bring together men of different ages and from various walks of life. They are comprised of young students, fathers, cooks, lawyers, drivers and teachers. When on duty, reservists leave their normal life – their family, friends or a promising first date. On their return, they face financial problems, angry clients or an academic year compromised by thirty days of an involuntary break.
Israeli reservists are rightists and leftists, supporters of a tough security policy or of a unilateral dismantling of the settlements. They are, above all, civilians who become soldiers for a period of a few weeks during which they carry out missions as basic as simple patrols or as complex as combat operations when their lives might be at risk.
These periods of forced intimacy – Miluim – are catalysts of strong friendships or disagreements, stormy political debates and interesting conversations that step beyond the social or geographical borders which ordinarily connect one to homogeneous relationships. For many men, these intense dialogs soften the harsh reality of their service. They are, for numerous reservists, the reason why they are ready once again to wear their uniform. As one of them once stated: “After all, and with all due respect to ideology, when it’s time to fight, the only thing holding you from running in the other direction is the guy next you.”
Photographs: Michael Hassoun
Website: http://photomh.com/
some strong photographs but i felt like the whole was let down by too many fillers. this for me was a story that needed better captions. after viewing the pictures on their own i didn’t feel like i knew much more about the life of an israeli reservist than i could have worked out for myself.
First thoughts Michael; you seem to have captured the boredom and the camaraderie of the soldier’s life.
The landscape looks bleached and barren in a beautiful way.
I like photograph 7 as it seems to show the mixture of religious and secular.
More to come.
Thanks,
Mike.
bordem.. that’s what i got from the phots (NOTE > > OF THE ISRAELI SOLDIER LIFE not PHOTS)
i really enjoyed lots of the candid shots – there is a good balance between the camp and the missions, although it would have been good to see more of the tensions which exist and which you refer to in the text.. what seems missing to me is action – then again perhaps that is also absent from the israeli soldiers life in general.
the portraits are not really doing it for me – where the soldiers are looking straight at you.. i can understand that it brings you as a snapper into the series, however i think your other work is stronger..
if this is a longer project and there is opportunity to carry on it will produce an interesting story on a misunderstood and internationally maligned life situation..
personally i feel sorry for them, having met many who have gone AWOL and cut lonely figures drifting through the indian subcontinent.
i remember one guy – motorbiking up to ladakh at the very end of the season, close to the time the road would closed.. desperately unhappy as he was with what he had done, his anger towards his officers whom gave the orders was more than palpable..
..and in goa photographing the death of the free-party scene there in 97 – being quite seriously threatened by some who for obvious reasons did not want to be photographed.
the victims in the situation over there, perhaps as with all wars, fall on both sides of the political line.
I guess you had to be there. A few interesting images, but this looks more like photos you would pass around with your buddies as a memory of your experience. A personal chronicle, perhaps. But not particularly interesting if the viewer hadn’t been part of the experience.
i enjoy this. i see it more of a personal chronicle but i think it is very well done. certainly more that photos you would shoot with your buddies… i also see a few images here that remind me of vietnam and other wars as well. i think it is very well done. there is everything. the boredom, the waiting, training, action… seems very quiet in a way… very spaced. either way i like the direction on this. very nice !
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply snapshot quality. The photos are well done. I just don’t think they have a very wide appeal. More a personal record.
Forced military service is not a concept that I can claim to understand or agree with. The photos left me feeling isolated and disconnected…maybe that was the point…maybe that’s how the soldiers felt cuz it wasn’t their choice to serve…that’s all I got right now.
I like some of the pictures just as pictures. But this is straight documentary work and for that i really need to be able to discern the angle of approach, whether directly through the images or through a supporting text. I cannot with this. It seems to be somewhat ambiguous as a story [or story in progress]
The whole situation there is incredibly complex, on all sides, and a viewpoint from this authors position should have [in my opinion] HIS position nailed to it. Now i dont have any idea what HIS position is, and thats kind of my point. Its almost like he does not have one, or cares not to show it. Which translates directly [for me] into a set of images with no story, no ‘angle’.
Just a thought.
john
i don’t know anyone that is serious about photography that doesn’t wish to have a meaningful photography project; you’ve developed all these skills of composition and capture, but you can’t find anyway meaningfully to apply it.
you know, i actually think someone should set up a support group for ‘photographers without projects’; i’m sure it will be filled to capacity with deeply frustrated people all buying old film cameras as the only remedy.
because of this, my first reaction to these images was pure envy, not my typical envy, the envy of ‘i wish I had taken that shot’ it’s more of the envy of access, the envy of knowing that this experience was soaking wet with so many things to say that are so relevant to so many of us.
maybe it’s because i got called to active duty twice during desert storm and although i spent that time state-side training, i remember all the bankruptcies that were filed during that time, or maybe it’s because i can think of all the heated impassioned debates you describe, but mostly i’m in envy because you had some pretty good seats at one of the most relevant political social situations that i think exists in our lifetime, being a soldier in Israel. Saying all of this, i don’t know if i would have shot this any differently, i wasn’t there, so i don’t know, but i sure as heck know i’d like to have tried ;-)
The images in this essay are pretty much all pretty, and there are some interesting themes, things like vigilance, the concept of ‘captors and captured’, the mood of the place, and to some extent camaraderie, but i don’t think this edit weaves these themes together with any coherence, maybe a bit of visual pace and texture, but no internal discernable lyric. you know, i’ve got a funny feeling that you do have a set of images that could say something that you ‘might’ have wanted to say, but you instead went for the most pleasing individual images to look at; i could also be wrong about that. i’d be keen to understand how you picked these images and how big of an edit you had before this last cut. Actually, can i do an edit of your work Michael ;-)
Again, i find these images pleasing to look at and i would have just thought that and moved on without mentioning anything else, but this surely has to be a case study in being drenched in so many things to say and so much visual evidence to say them, but not deciding first what it was that you wanted to say before collecting and culling the image that say those things.
i could be wrong again, but i’ve never been a fan of going out and collecting pleasing images, as many as you can for a period of time and then letting the story fall out of that set through a good edit. Maybe the first iteration might work this way as the images you do take are probably the things you are subconsciously drawn to, but after that you need to commit to a message and collect images that re-enforce that message.
without a message you’re looking to re-enforce you will walk right past many images that are imperative to that story, but not knowing ahead of time they are part of it, they will remained uncollected. i don’t need to guess this as your introduction describes things that make me think you did have something to say, but the images you collected don’t gel to reveal this.
reading in between the lines even more of what you say and describing what i feel from the images, i sense a subtle feeling ‘awkward with the situation’ the images do not project a pure comfort with the job at hand, the images are not about a team of mercenaries doing a job no different to them as banking is for me, there’s this feeling of fitting in with this almost foreign ritual-like requirement, fitting it in with the personal things that matter to each person individually. Me personally, i’d love think this was the reality, i’d love to see a photo essay ‘gel’ about this reality, and i’d love to know there is a photo essay of Israeli soldiers that are just another bunch of normal people feeling a bit awkward with the duties at hand, i think too many soldiers are getting painted with the political agenda of just a few. A bit selfish i know, but a desire all the same ;-)
I hope you wring this project for some more ‘story’; there’s so much there!
MICHAEL….JOE
Michael , why not let Joe take a shot at an edit??? might be very interesting indeed…curious myself..
Joe, go to it…we can create a link easy enough….
cheers, david
Is there any chance I can wait for the slideshow to download before I see it? Because at the moment it plays up to 15 or something and then I have to wait for ages. Clicking on the numbers doesn’t help either. It’s always a pain to watch slideshows here. A progress bar to see how much is buffered could be useful.
question to the photographer. how much ‘allowed’ were you to shoot this? I mean was it while you were doing your time in?
STELIOS…
i think it totally depends on your internet connection….for example, from my laptop i can sometimes see everything as per built, other times i have had the same problem as you….but, i will let Anton answer you since he really can explain it to you in a way that i cannot…
truly sorry for any inconvenience…naturally, we try to build these to be user friendly, but there are so so many variables…makes me crazy too!!!
cheers, david
stelios
the slideshow system preloads one image at a time; there is unfortunately nothing we can do about that. if there is a delay between the images displaying on your screen, it is directly related to the speed of your internet connection (or internet traffic at that time). Also, if you do not have the latest Flash Player, i would suggest you update that one too.
I understand the difficulties. just thought I’d mention in case there’s a solution I don’t know.thanks
cheers
Michael,
I congratulate you for being selected for the essay.
I have only read your text and watched the essay twice and have not yet looked at your web site. I kept myself from reading comments. This is my unbiased opinion.
Your text is literally disconnected from the visual.
Essay has a clear intent but I do not see it. I ll just ask questions – they will better describe my expectations:
Where is the ordinary life of these men? What makes me believe these men have a civilian life?
Where is the friendship? I see a couple of photos that go there but these are not descriptive of war time friendship.
Where is the disagreement between soldiers?
Why did you chose to add images of captives, road checks? What do you want to convey with that? Aren’t these cliche photos?
cheers
Joe “i don’t know anyone that is serious about photography that doesn’t wish to have a meaningful photography project” – yes, very true.
One essay that I’d like to see covered and probably won’t be able to do myself is “Shallom-Hello”. This is from a radio programme heard on BBC Radio 4. It is, if memory serves, the name of an organization in Israel which puts anonymous callers, Israeli and Palestinian in touch to talk about .. anything. The organization came about due to a misdialed call by a Palestinian whose wife was about to give birth and he was attempting to get her to a hospital (not an easy task in the Occupied Territories). By chance he dialed an Israeli, who phoned him back the next day to see how his wife had fared (good news).
Apparently there is little contact for the most part between Israeli and Palestinian. This leads to a “them and us’ mentality. Shalom-Hello hopes to reveal the common humanity of all participants.
I’d love to see a photographic essay which examines this phenomena: perhaps bringing people together for the first time.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Joe’s comments and questions about the editing is interesting indeed.
Do we use pictures that are less graphically successful in order to better tell the story, or do we only use the very best pictures no matter what and leave potential ‘holes’ in the narrative? Given enough time and effort we can hopefully fill all the ‘holes’ with only the very best pictures of course…but what if time is limited? What do you do?
Simon
I agree with Haik that these questions need answering:
“Where is the ordinary life of these men? What makes me believe these men have a civilian life?
Where is the friendship? I see a couple of photos that go there but these are not descriptive of war time friendship.
Where is the disagreement between soldiers?
Why did you chose to add images of captives, road checks? What do you want to convey with that?”
I was feeling disconnected when viewing this because there seemed to be no cohesive back story apparent to the viewer when looking at these images in a sequential collective. Just seeing this showed me a glimpse, a snippet of what life looks like inside the Israeli military…the imagery, however does not hint at the fact that service is forced and disruptive to the lives of those when they are called upon. To me, theses images individually are great, well executed photos, but there is more to the story that I haven’t seen…there needs to be a more cohesive tie between the text and the visual. But, this is a great idea and solid start for an essay of this importance.
Hi Michael
I sent you an image by image review of the essay, let me know if you want to play!
-Joe
Michael,
Some strong images but you don’t keep the story for me. I agree with Jim it looks like personal record, everything is ok, this is very good story, but as you see it is hard to convince the rest to your vision.
The situation tell you what angle or frame use and I think it should be only your decision.
For me you are sometimes too close and sometimes too far.
But the rest is very nice.
Keep going.
I haven’t seen this story before. I have met a lot of Israeli’s on my travels and spoken to them about there experiences, but have never seen a photo essay shot by a reservist. So of course the access is great!…
Are you still there Michael? Are you continuing this work? I hope so, it is important work and you will get some great advise here (already have) on tightening your essay. I do feel it is rather loose at this stage. But you have a lot to build on and this is a very interesting story.
While beeing travelling for many weeks, I recognize I have missed a lot of interesting photography.
Michael’s story is also very interesting, I haven’t seen too much work been done on Israeli military, and it’s great just to get the access. Photographing military issues normally is very difficult and restricted.
I don’t know if this actually was the case here, but it seems that you have difficulties getting really close to the people and your topic. As some other person here said, you sees great situations and you photograph them, but the many of the photos are not strong enough. I think.
For such a long essay, it would also be good to vary more when it comes to light, time of day etc. For me it seems like almost all the outside pictures (except no 15) are made on grey, cloudy days. How does it look like in the morning? In the night, late sun..?
If this is an ongoing project for you, I would go back and shoot without compromizes, don’t think you have to please the people in the camp, tell us how it feels to be there.. Good luck :-)
MH,
seems like a subject that may be obscured from general view, not something you see everyday, behind the scenes from a part of the world thats constantly being scrutinized. tweezers and microscope.
i find this set kind of failing to reveal something though. what is the point, what is the photographer trying to achieve. to be honest I would have liked to see more of what the relationship between the Israeli army and the Palestinian people is really like. I dont think MH is helping me to understand why there is such a degree of seperation, but actually in a way affirming that there is such a seperation.
what the intentions of the photog are i am not sure, and its really none of my business, other than the viewer, but it seems as though the view here is limited, the field of scope only covers MH and his army pals, standing around with guns and helmits, so what! with this kind of access there seems like a great opportunity to really show something valuable and constructive and ultimately informative, but i aint getting that.
best,
SIMON…
interesting question….personally, i just cannot appreciate pictures which supposedly “tell a story” , but just aren’t strong pictures in and of themselves…i think Joe would disagree with me on this as would many others…so there is no “right or wrong” to it i suppose…we will see soon i think Joe’s edit of the same set of pictures to perhaps be more storytelling..this will be interesting indeed…overall for this set, i think the access was most interesting to me…i just have not seen anyone shoot this before…so far, the consensus on this story is pretty much the same and i hope Michael jumps in to give his circumstances, reasons, etc…..
cheers, david
DAH “personally, i just cannot appreciate pictures which supposedly “tell a story” etc.” Yes, the goal is always to get a great photograph – at least for the photographer. I believe that Nat Geo call some photographs ‘point photos”: not great photographs in-themselves but valuable to the overall storytelling process?
In the days of film, nat Geo photogs used to ship all film back to base and the story editor would begin the edit. Was this so for you as a freelance? Do you find digital valuable in that you can edit in-the-field before sending to a publication or do you always send direct to Magnum?
Best wishes,
Mike.
DAVID,
I remember you wrote here some time ago about the arguments between you and (if I remember correctly) William Albert Allard about editing down his pictures, so I’m not surprised by your answer! I agree that pictures that can stand on their own are what you need to go for.
Do you think that the writing accompanying a set of photos is critical in ‘telling the story’, as in the written ‘statements’ that usually go with photo essays? Maybe the very best essays or individual pictures can communicate some universal human sentiment, without needing words? Or not?
Michael’s essay reminded me of Rachel Papo’s ‘Serial no. 3817131′ – http://www.serialno3817131.com/ – mainly because of the subject matter.
WOW michael…
unlike the flock here, i like this essay very much, my favorite so far along with previously published michael c. brown’s and cary conover’s. Strong vision, consistency and a beautiful b/w.
I hope some magazine will buy it soon!
cheers
those who criticize should at least look at the pictures carefully first…
someone wrote:
“to be honest I would have liked to see more of what the relationship between the Israeli army and the Palestinian people is really like”
#3,#6 and #24 will possibly give you a hint of what the everyday ordinary relationship between the israeli army and the palestinian people are (unless they have coffee together after lunch…).
i agree… i like the work as well. i do feel there is a relationship there. there are one or two images i would edit out (looking at the camera) – but overall i think it is a nice essay. good job.
Ladies and gentlemen,
First, many thanks for having taken the time to have a look and share your impressions on the work.
I would like to react on some of the points raised here:
As much as I would like my pictures to “say it all” (who wouldn’t), as in many other essays, some explanations seemed necessary. Do the essay has to directly show what is told in the text?
Frankly I don’t think so, and at least, that was not my intention while writing it.
Then about what were my intentions, and why it is not clear what my opinion on the duty is.
Well, some background:
I was born in Paris (France, not Texas) and emigrated to Israel at the age of 18.
until then, what I knew of the Israeli army was stupidely dichotomic.
For the Jewish community were I grew up, the last of the IDF soldier was a hero with supernatural abilities and with a moral code of the Mahatma Gandi.
For the French press, or at least most of it (I’m talking of the 80′s) the IDF is systematically described as martyrizing the Palestinians just for the fun of it.
I am barely exagerating.I am sure some will not agree with me on this, but let’s just say that it is my feeling up to this day.
Coming to Israel at the age of 18, I learnt pretty quickly that nothing of these stereotyps works.
The world is not flat, but the screen, the paper makes it flat.
And all of a sudden, you are not looking at the TV. You are what the TV is looking for.
Quite a trip.
I joined the army at the age of 25 after having finished my BSc for only a few months, served my first reserve period at 27.
At the beginning, it was unbearable. Nothing of the life of a Parisian could prepare me to this world, to his rules.
Now, the people I know there, and sometimes knowing that we are doing a necessary jobs (in our point of vue) makes it possible, and sometimes enjoyable.
So what did I want to say….
I wanted to tell the other story. The one untold by the medias.
I guess a Palestinian could have done exactly the same on his side, showing how most of his life is concentrated on his living and his interaction with the army is mostly reduced to trying to pass as quickly as possible the checkpoints to get to work, trying to avoid me when coming back from a week of illegal work in Israel.
Most of our lives is no drama.
Did I succeed to show what I wanted to?
I am not sure…
Do I have an opinion on the conflict?
of course!
A very bright and strong and fully argumented, convincing opinion which is totally irrelevant considering what I wanted to show.
I am part of the conflict. My opinion is biased, and I am not trying to sell anything to anyone.
(Or maybe that under our helmets, we don’t have horns :-)?)
I would like to ask for a favor from those who think I missed a point, whatever it was, to have a look at my site. Maybe the much broader selection of pictures there can enlighten the essay a bit?
About my situation right now: I am about to complete my PhD in Industrial Engeneering, and I just started a post-doc position in the US.
When I’ll be back to Israel, I will aparently be about 40, which is the age of release from the reserve. So I’m not sure I will be again “there”. If you guys think I need more material, I can go and volunteer, but I’m not sure my wife will love this :-).
Finally, Joe, thanks a lot for the editing suggestion. Please give me the time to seriously have a look at it and maybe discuss it with DAH.
Peace on you,
Michael
WOW!….
ok, 1st: Ben R/Sidney, U 2 win!…i broke my 72-hr thought for silence. But, i’ve got like 2 mintues of time to squeeze, that’s it. u guys win: 2 wager: can i make it until monday morning (no time tomorrow/saturday/sunday, so 2nd wager ;)) )…
Ok, 2nd:
WOW!
I AM ALSO REALLY REALLY SURPRISED! It’s a terrific, powerful and quite sophisticated essay. I watched it 3 times at school and 2 times now. There are some, visually, great photographs: lucid, intimate, metaphoric, distilled: 1, 2(an absolutely brilliant image and one that could be anthologized with regard to how both soldiers and reservists spend time), 3 (the tension between the intensity of the circumstances, with the palestian men being blindfolder and the absolutely pedestrian surroundings, the latrine, and the ‘casual’ unkempt soldier with the head band: it’s like out of Catch-22), 4, 5(!!), 7(!!), 8 (for the collision between the guy in the forgeound and the masked guy), 9 (brilliant!: the movement from the intensity of the soldier on the left to the middle one (phone) to the right one who looks bored, slouching, this images, against the stark background/landscape captures 3 very different experiences and truth about service in 1 photograph!), 11, 12(!), 13 (exceptional and beautiful photograph, recalls for me both koudelka gypsies and pjg), 14(!), 16!!, 17 (timeless!!), 18, 19, 20 (!!!!), 22 (like Mccullen), 23, 24, 25 (brilliant)….
Actually, I would casually ask viewers to re-watch the essay. It works in it’s entirety for me, visually, emotionally, narratively. I think Michael has captured for us quite intimately both the tedium (the ordinary boredom of service) and the tension. It has been written that as a soldier, 99% of the time you sit around and wait for the 1%: long stretches of waiting, watching, sleeping, remembering, playing, mind/body numbing waiting for that 1% that becomes stark and mad in it’s intensity: be it during war/combat or outside of the zone. Absolutely Michael illustrates this with really brilliant iconography and moments. But also, the essay is filled with lots of great intimacy and ‘odd’ moments that fill out the lives and time during the service of the reservist. This, finally, is punctuated by the intensity of the reality of what being in the military means: the palestinians blindfolded, the old men and women searched at the borders, the stark scarred landscape, the watching at movement from distance which might be an ‘enemy.’ There is incredible sadness and tension in this story too, as well as the comraderie between the soldiers.
I think the problem is our association with recent events in Gaze or maybe our hunger to have wanted more obvious military stuff (shots of war) or stuff of their civilian lives? I dont know. I didnt see this story at all about politics, (though one cannot look at a story about Israel or the military without that important perspective/context), but about the ambiguity and tension and confused circumstance of being a reservist and serving in the military. I am sure there are many who are reservists who struggle with the decisions that the IDF does or the Israeli leadership and there are some who do not. What I found powerful about the work was that it wasn’t disconnected from the horror that was reigned upon Gaza this year, or the difficulty of life under occupation, or the fear that both Palestians and Israelis live under, but that it took a specific story and forces us through the property of photogrpahy, through the story of these men to deal with the life that necessitates a reserve army to begin with. I wont (now) bring in a discussion of Israeli/Palestine conflict and politics, but the tension that underlies this story is very palpable. But it also speak of a more universal story with regard to service.
there IS DESCRIPTION and detail with regard to the everyday life of these men, both in service and out, but since the story is about their time in service, how does one flesh that out and detail that with images?….it’s there in the pictures….we see the entirety trajectory of their experience….
a new edit, from viewers…?….hmmm….well, ok…i guess that what we all do, only isn’t it odd not have already understood that each of us sees and experiences these pics and stories in our own way and that then a new edit becomes not the photogrpahers story,, but a viewers….but…i’ll wait for that too….but, oh, i dont know….i guess Burn is all things…..
Maybe on sunday, i will write more to flesh it out what I am striving to right…but i think the story is very powerful, contains great, lucid and strong work and that i am left, again, with a story not of war but of a group of men who find themselves in circumstances that are not clear, filled with all kinds of strange ambiguity and conflict…and, ultimately, feels bereft….
the soldier as Sisyphus……..and when will politicians understand this…
SIMON…
well, the text SHOULD always be as good as the photographs or vice versa…it rarely happens…few writers are photographers and few photographers are writers…i did not say none, i just said few…
if one wants the context of a set of photographs, obviously words tend to be the first choice, but i have also often viewed a piece where music set context quite well…i think it is possible to have totally stand alone images for which text elaborates the essay, but if you look at most great photography books there tends to be minimal text…the same photographs as per published in a magazine may have been subsidized by written “explanation”, but when the photographs are in FINAL form, i.e. book or in a museum show , text tends to be minimal or esoteric in nature…
i am a believer in photography all by itself as a language…a new language now barely spoken…while some think stills are “over”, i think it is only the beginning…historically photography went from novelty, to representation, to mass hobby, to art …and so technical as to confuse many as to its purpose…now that we are getting past all of the above, and as the mass media move to the net and video gives us our “news”, still photography will come of a new age..it only stands to reason….the written word was functional only long before it became poetry…and anyone can compose a grammatically “correct” sentence…few can juxtapose those words to go beyond “description”…so will go photography …with everyone able to make a technically “perfect picture”, the real authors will rise above the fray
cheers, david
mmm..
ma nishma Michael?
ata medaber ivrit?
I lived in the middle east for a number of years,
was there for the Gulf War, putting on a gas mask…
In these images
I felt a disconnect,
for that IS how it is;
from my experience…
I have friends in milium,
zay chim…
thats life..
no fun..
born into it…
really loved the frame of the soldier with a pony tail,
and religion walking beside…
did your family move to Israel,
or just you?
is this an ongoing project?
if you are in milium, then I am sure it is…
perhaps life long….
circles,
continuous,
circles…
shalom..
salam..
**
Since I seem to have done something that finally allows me to comment (but what? some kind of an engineer…) I will try to answer to more specific points:
Haik: this is NOT wartime. Most of the service is a long and boring anticlimax.
And although there is up to a certain point a good level of comradery, not everyone there is the friend of everyone. Some guys are great and friendly, other are jerks, just like in any other place.
Andrea: point well taken about the distance. This work was done on several years and I may have evoluted in that regard. About the light, maybe the more even light of winter is more pleasing to me, maybe the expressions of the guys when cold is interfering are better, I don’t know. there are other, much harsher lightings in other pictures of the essay.
Luzz, thanks for the kind words. The arrestations were actually done during the operation “firewall” and are quite not representative of the interaction between the army and the civilians on the dily basis. Things are complex. The really tough parts (crowded checkpoints) with the population are left to younger, more trained units. That means that most of the interaction I have seen is kind of low key. And yes, I do remember having had coffee with some palestinian workers on the building site of the great “china wall”…
I’m not saying that the IDF is kind and nice and that civilians just love them (us). Just that the situation is complex, and sometimes not as tense as it may seem. Too much anecdotes would be needed to describe it right.
Michael
I felt that the whole piece was great. I felt that it really captured the monotony of a reservist’s daily routine and that is why I think that it was so successful. Another commentator mentioned that they would have liked to have seen more action, well perhaps action isn’t part of the daily routine of these reservists.
I also loved the paradox of people going about their daily life juxtaposed with the soldiers standing nearby on duty.
The photograph with the three friends/reservists in embrace was very nostalgic and that photograph in particular made me envy not being a soldier in a way or having undergone military training.
Some of my friends from my city in the US told me about the close forming of friendships during military training. The photos in this series from the reservists private rooms really captured this and I felt envious in a way on having missed out on that. I was glad that I didn’t see any real violence with opposition forces as the power of this series lay in the everyday.
Cheers
…. crazy traffic in L.A…
Obama’s in town….
you cant move around Long Beach…
sorry book…
it took me a while to post your comment…
:)
Marcin,
thank u…
got your comment!!!!!!!
:)))))))
big hug
… great, great essay…
brought me back sooooooooooooooo many memories….
im not gonna say more… no need to….
ok y’all… going to bed ..
long road trip to north california tomorrow…
Big Sur…:)
Michael and I are having a great discussions on editing, but a couple of things have just come up, some admitting the obvious, but some concepts maybe not so obvious.
So the obvious first, i do always think that people that have not taken the pictures are always better editors than pure self-editing. This is not to be confused with self-designing the ‘end message/mood’ just not necessarily picking the images that best produce that end-message/mood. The only ‘somewhat’ remedy for this is to look at your images six months later when you’ve forgotten the emotion of being there.
also, as said, i’m certain a photographer should have a message/mood in mind when they go and collect images for a project, but i’m fairly convinced that you if you want to share your message with an audience you’re best to hand over your work to someone that wasn’t there to help you shape the message
Ok, more admitting the obvious, i just find it’s nearly impossible for us to divorce ourselves from our work or from actually being there, but more tragically your audience is never going to know what it was like to be there at that moment, so even if the reality of the image is part of the message, if the image doesn’t convey that reality then it’s a victim and gets cut.
Of course there’s the sinister side of that equation, what if an image telegraphs exactly the message you want to deliver, but you know the reality of the image was not at all what it conveys? but your audience tells you that’s the message they get? (Kevin Carter comes to mind) Do you keep it? I say yes, the message is always more important than the reality in the ‘Art World’ and it’s the benefit of the double-edge sword I described above where the reality is not coming through in the image.
so as far as editing, it’s not a carte blanche hand over to the editor, the message/mood is still owned by the author and that message/mood is the master of the editor’s decisions. This makes me wonder what kind of conversations take place when you are actually preparing images for writing pieces at Nat Geo?, I suspect you need to surrender even your message David? Is this why it’s all about strong images over cohesive ones? (I’m reaching for the salt in case i’ve just stuffed my shoe in my mouth again ;-)
But back to when the photographs come first, when it comes to the decisions by the editor, especially when the editor doesn’t select your personal favourites, but the audience gets exactly the message/mood the author desired, how willing is the author to surrender their favourites to the cutting floor? I think this is the dilemma of most editing exercises.
Then again this is my opinion, I say white, some say Black ;-)
DAVID,
Thank you for your inspiring response… I must go out and photograph right now!!!
Simon
JOE,
Your thoughts remind me of the essay ‘The Photographer as Auteur’ by Mike Johnston: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/auteur.shtml
The still picture, the moving image and the written word are not reality, but the author’s message and intention and an audience with an active, open mind can perhaps shine a light on what is real.
Simon
test :))
ANTON: :))
this seems to work…but i hate to be a special ;)))…hopefully, we’ll figure this out…maybe it is my name that is creating the havoc…’bob black’ is a ‘famous’ guy, an anarchist from Seattle…and not always a pleasant presence in the blog world…good god, i hope im not like that guy ;))))..anyway, i’ll use this for now until we figure something out :)))…
JOE :))
I look forward to seeing the edit/collaboration with Michael….i was really really surprised that this essay met with tepid response…really…and i wonder if it doesnt have to do with the surrounding context of Israel, Gaza and War: in many senses (particularly in light of it’s being shown now), it defies viewer expectations….it battles against the viewers conceptions of what this essay SHOULD have been…that’s very clear very clear in the comments…call me Ishmael, but u know me, i love work that goes against what viewers bring to the table: for me, that is still the power of photography and narrative (maybe that’s been my Burn mantra for 3 months now): for viewers to be Opened and contradicted to their thoughts/orientations/expectations…here Michael does it with straightforward, classic, well-honed photography, rather than visual madness or conceptual ideas, and it still accomplishes the same…..and i am NOT down on you editing the piece (im all for collaboration, and do it all the time with other artists) and see the beauty of Burn as a place of interactivity (hence my frustration with David McG’s presentation as a form), but I just get naturally concerned when people volunteer to re-do someone else’s work because they dont feel it….that to me, is the opposite of what SHOULD happen when and if people choose to engage with photography….imagine a reader saying: ‘let me re-edit ________’ (fill in the blank of any book)…being an editor is one thing, but reconstructing…another….I am very pleased that you and Michael have had a good dialogue and its been fruitful….that is what Burn is REALLY about:
conversation, ideas, learning…
ok, back to the nether world of the silent…
RUNNING
B
I mean, there is NOTHING wrong with reconstruction…i LOVE mash-ups (music) and artist that appropriate and re-do…love wide sargassa sea over Eyre, but, when viewers/readers begin to re-make another person’s work as an improved variation and still allow it to be called ‘the author’s work’ that’s a bit, ummmm…well….anyway, im sure the 2 of u will bring an interesting collaboration and i look forward to it…done, promise, b
Joe.
I nearly always like what you have to say but earlier you said
“So the obvious first, i do always think that people that have not taken the pictures are always better editors than pure self-editing. This is not to be confused with self-designing the ‘end message/mood’ just not necessarily picking the images that best produce that end-message/mood. The only ‘somewhat’ remedy for this is to look at your images six months later when you’ve forgotten the emotion of being there.
also, as said, i’m certain a photographer should have a message/mood in mind when they go and collect images for a project, but i’m fairly convinced that you if you want to share your message with an audience you’re best to hand over your work to someone that wasn’t there to help you shape the message”
And i have to be a bit vocal on this one and say i believe that to be completely wrong.
Collaberation sure; advice from someone who can see, of course; but hand it over? Fuck that.
I guess like all things really if you dont know exactly what you want to say you should say nothing.Not just get someone else to write the script for you.
Letting someone else dictate the rythmn, and therefore the ‘effect’ of your work? I think not.
John:
AMEN!!!!…that’s what i was trying to suggest, in a nice way! :)))
bob
John, if you only knew the irony of what you just wrote. e-mail to follow!
SIMON
Thanks for the link, i’ve not seen that before, it’s an interesting perspective. From that article i like this posit the best:
Trachtenberg’s approach gives hope to working photographers that there may at least possibly still be some purpose in trying to construct sets of photographs which will someday have some authenticity not only as a visual record but as social history and in terms of communicative intent, and that they might retain a coherent sense of authorship as time passes: not, of course, because they can show with absolute objectivity what was (few of us believe in that possibility any more), but that the point of view of the photographer and the interpretations of his subject he encourages among his audience will remain valuable to know about as well.
seems relevant to Michael’s essay, his attitude towards this social, political period of time may seem ‘somewhat’ obvious to us now, but ten years from now it will be anthropological evidence, and ironically not because of the pictures.
basically photographers are part of history not only because of what’s in their pictures, but because of the set of pictures they actually select to deliver as a message; that editing effort assigns importance (it’s their personal and point-in-time, social finger print) the photographer’s perspective becomes history just as much as the image information.
you could say the same things about all modes of art as barometers of the time. But, and i keep banging on about this, the set has to deliver a coherent message or it’s just a bunch of pictures diluting what could be a social commentary, and i stand by my opinion that editors help authors to arrive at the desired message, being a visual or text based message.
but joe:
yes, editors do help writers/photographers….BUT BUT BUT…
“that editors help authors to arrive at the desired message, being a visual or text based message.”
yes, BUT they help arrive at THE MESSAGE THEY want to impart…sometimes this is the SAME as the author, sometimes it is different…im holding my tongue until i see YOUR MESSAGE (your edit of Michael’s work)…but sometimes EDITORS, just as historians and politicians, promulgated the WRONG message…
sorry joe, but that’s some slippery slope u r working and remarkably, umm, arrogant assumption to make that your edit (“i wish i had been there to reconfigure the work michael’s work, is how i read you 1st post) is the best/correct/historical/anthropological….you’ve made the misstep by assuming that because the final appearance of a work is the one that matters (again, not always true joe, as we adapt, discover, annotate work all the time long after the author has departed) for history or reading….
I think if an editor (in this case you’ve become that) or collaborator works with a person to produce a body of work, great. Editors weild magical wands…and often have been ‘eyes’ than photographers, just as many editors have better sense for narrative/sentence structure than writers, and I’ve worked with both (photo editors and writing editors, and have done stints as both too), but i think you MUST be very very careful to assume that because YOU didnt feel this story, that you re-working of it will highlight or properly contextualize or make the story sing…Michael’s story works for me…would i shoot it differently, arrange pics differently, add/cut others, of course, he and i are different…but, i think, some of what you have written is very frightening, frankly….
a barometer, indeed
though I found you ‘volunteering’ to edit the work very odd (unsolicited), i do look forward to seeing your collaboration…
all the best
bob
sorry, have to use an alias, to get around the spam filter now, but it’s me: bob…
Oi Joe!!1….
yes, editors do help writers/photographers….BUT BUT BUT…
“that editors help authors to arrive at the desired message, being a visual or text based message.”
yes, BUT they help arrive at THE MESSAGE THEY want to impart…sometimes this is the SAME as the author, sometimes it is different…im holding my tongue until i see YOUR MESSAGE (your edit of Michael’s work)…but sometimes EDITORS, just as historians and politicians, promulgated the WRONG message…
sorry joe, but that’s some slippery slope u r working and remarkably, umm, arrogant assumption to make that your edit (“i wish i had been there to reconfigure the work michael’s work, is how i read you 1st post) is the best/correct/historical/anthropological….you’ve made the misstep by assuming that because the final appearance of a work is the one that matters (again, not always true joe, as we adapt, discover, annotate work all the time long after the author has departed) for history or reading….
I think if an editor (in this case you’ve become that) or collaborator works with a person to produce a body of work, great. Editors weild magical wands…and often have been ‘eyes’ than photographers, just as many editors have better sense for narrative/sentence structure than writers, and I’ve worked with both (photo editors and writing editors, and have done stints as both too), but i think you MUST be very very careful to assume that because YOU didnt feel this story, that you re-working of it will highlight or properly contextualize or make the story sing…Michael’s story works for me…would i shoot it differently, arrange pics differently, add/cut others, of course, he and i are different…but, i think, some of what you have written is very frightening, frankly….
a barometer, indeed
though I found you ‘volunteering’ to edit the work very odd (unsolicited), i do look forward to seeing your collaboration…
all the best
bob