In any case, good luck.

“Daughters of the King” will become a book soon. Thanks to DHA who first lunched me here, this summer I published on of my new stills on the New York Times magazine (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/11/magazine/WTWTmarital.html?ref=magazine) and I guess for me this was like touching the sky with a finger. So this gave me a kick in the butt to move forward even more…and that’s how the idea that my project would have been more complete with some frames of orthodox women from the little town near Minks in Russia where the Lubavitch first originated from and in Jerusalem, the Holy city for Jews all over the world, come about.

So, a month ago I decided to crate a kickstarter project to be able to make “Daughers of the King” an international affair and fly to Israel and Russia to continue my project and later really make it into a book.

Here is the link if you want to check it out and see some of my newest work: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1401126259/daughters-of-the-king

I know it could have never happened without Burn and its fantastic community of photographers.
So thank you!

Hope to send you more news and photos from either Jerusalem or Minks soon
Fede:)

I just wanted to extend a BIG thanks to all of you for your last comments.
You know who you are (Jordan, Gordon, Jim, Mark g, Herve and Mv.)!
The BIGGEST of my GRAZIE goes to DAH, my mentor, friend and always inspiring teacher. Without your push in the workshop and your unconditional attention, I may not have done such work. I look forward to show you more soon!

On a side note, I wanted to quickly say that, your comments/concerns/reflections you have allowed me to reflect on how to continue my project. Thanks to your piece of advice, I feel next time I will have to decide where to go and what to shoot, I will try to think twice about the questions I am apt to answer and whether or not what I have chosen to depict can be as clear to my viewers as it is to my eye.
And, yes Mv, as a trained print journalist, text will definitely come along with the stills!!!

Although, I have to say, mystique at times is what I strive for…I do not want to be too literal in what I show through my lens. I want to give you the weapons to, maybe, extrapolate your own feeling and emotion on your own.

On this note, I will just say STAY TUNED for more on my Blog.
Ciao and thanks again,
Fede~

I do, however, share the concern or some other commenters that you weren’t entirely successful regarding the inferiority issue which you raise in your text. I don’t see anything in the photos that even addresses it. What I do see is a vibrant, very alive, community of women leading engaged and interesting lives. I don’t think that speaks to questions of inferiority, I think it speaks to questions of happiness and personal sovereignty. And I don’t see that you provide any answers to questions of inferiority, but I think you provide refreshingly insightful answers to questions of happiness and personal sovereignty. So perhaps you’re posing the wrong questions?

Perhaps not, though. I’m certainly no knowledgeable expert about Orthodox Jewish customs and practices. I’m aware that there are different rules governing the roles of men and women but never really thought of it in terms of inferiority/superiority. Just different, though of course in a patriarchical kinda way. But thinking about it now (thanks to your essay), I guess that I did have an unconscious idea that these women somehow led gray lives of joyless, subservient toil. Is that true? Did I really believe that? No, it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but truish nonetheless. I think the strength of your work is that it demolishes that particularly stereotype in a spectacular manner. And it does it visually with little or no need for textual explication. Textual explication would help to accomplish even more though, which I think is what you’re after.

So that’s my advice, which is all about the accompanying text. Consider the discrepancy between what your brain is telling you you want to show and what your eye is actually seeing and bring the two together better in the text. I think it would help if there were an overview of just what the formal relationship is supposed to be between men and women. Address the stereotypes you think people harbor as well. Most of your viewers will only be dimly aware of those facts and understanding them more thoroughly is, I think, necessary for communicating your pov.

Forgive my stupidity if you can. I spoke without proper consideration, very thoughtless (not to mention ungenerous). I went and looked at your work again and it’s indeed very skilled, some beautiful images, and full of surprises (the shadows of the candle-holders in number 6, the way the girl hidden behind her books in number 14 centres everything… lots of lively peripheral visions everywhere). I should have given you your dues, rather than my musty old scepticism and pedantry. And the fact that this was all done in a few days (as part of a workshop) is truly remarkable. Wonderful use of the flash too (as Gordon noted), warm and non-intrusive; art and skill, candlepower! Bravo.

amazing work…and in just a few days….that lead picture looks like it should be a classic and i think it is…i will be very anxious to see what you do next…whether or not you continue with Orthodox women or move on to something else will be of great interest to me…….if i were you , i would stick with this awhile….see how it feels in a few weeks….in any case, you have done one of the best essays i have ever seen done in the workshop environment…

cheers, david

I’ve been away, and busy lately, but must just take a moment to congratulate you on this series.

Theme and treatment are fascinating, but that aside, I must commend you on your technique. Your use of off camera flash is amazing. This technique is not easy to master, especially how you have chosen to use it, with the angle of flash coverage less than the angle of view. Years ago, commercial shooter Hiro was a master of this.
You have taken it even farther, #4 is simply brilliant. While it looks like a snatched paparazzi shot, the flash positioned inside the car shows that while it was carefully concieved, it appears so wonderfully spontaneous. Wow.

This is by far the best work in your portfolio in my opinion.

Nicely done.

jordan

Religions are not about respect.. but about CONTROL…
——————————–
One doesn’t nullify the other, Panos. Though I always make a difference between religion as an institution and religion which is simply a means to commune with something that is bigger than your own little self and that cannot be defined by words ultimately, but experienced. There are plenty of guys who did that from every religion on earth.

To me, you come across a little like a Born Again Christian, especially in the comments stream; your writing (and some of the photography) has the uncritical enthusiasm of the (re)converted, so you can use a term like ‘spiritual beauty’ as if it should actually mean something to someone who has no inclination to join the club. You say:

‘These orthodox Jewish women are much more than just mothers doing the daily errands and then finding time to pray once in a while. They are “machines” oiled to perfection. They are the “pillars of a secular tradition” of incredibly rigorous laws and regulations (inside and outside the synagogue) that today stand by only thanks to them who teach them to their children and their children’s children…’

‘Much more than just mothers’? What on earth is wrong with being ‘just’ a mother (or father for that matter), a big enough task for anyone I should think. ‘Machines oiled to perfection’? Sorry, but this sounds pretty grim to me; Orthodox Stepford Wives come to mind. And aren’t some of those laws, such as the bathing rituals women have to undergo (connected with menstruation) rather demeaning, from a feminist, or just merely humanist point of view? As if a woman’s sexuality were somehow unclean. So Jacobson thought (in his Roots Schmoots) and I am inclined to agree with him. And how is that tradition of ‘incredibly rigorous laws and regulation’ in any way ‘secular’, since they are bound up so closely with the religion? Give me Howard Jacobson or Woody Allen any day, for the sake of my children and their children’s children.

General comment—
My photos are showing you what I see to be true. What you make of them is your perception of my view of walking a foreign world of respect for laws and regulations you and I may not even know existed before.
When I first walked on Kingston Ave, I felt as an outsider, a little ant walking in confusion and fear because I was more ignorant about what I was photographing than now.
In these past months, I grew closer to most of these people and I got them to explain to me why they do what and when. I read about the Rebbe’s teachings and learned of the “miracles” the Chabad Jews think he performed and why then he was the Massiah on earth.
From the knowledge came more confusion and even more fear of never being able to be accepted and/or to understand further why these people could live such “different” lives and I was not “buying it!”

But, the months went by and with the dinners and the weddings and the time spent speaking to these people came the outmost respect for this unknown and extraneous “way of life.”

Now, all I want to do is seek more, the rest of the answers will come!

Ok, so here are my Personal comments back now:

Bob has got my point when he says he noticed the men are in the background in my photos while the women are the center of the frames. Well, if you walk at the beginning of Kingston Ave. closer to 770 (the historical synagogue home of the Chabad Rebbe) you will notice many more black coats than shining female wigs with strollers. But, if you walk further into the core of Crown Height, toward Crown and President streets and then keep on walking in the alleys, you will see the women and their babies…many of them!

Now, to Panos…with all do respect, I disagree with some of what you said “There is not a single religion that actually respects a woman…” and I was not motivated to pursue my essay for this reason or the one that “given truth,” but by curiosity on what makes outsiders (non-Jews or more-traditional Jews) think women are indeed inferior in the Orthodox Jewish faith because they are often home taking care of their children?
I wanted to show the “real truth” the one only these people know for themselves and, unless you go and have dinner with them and stay over for a while, you may never know and that is the one that this religion is not at all based only on a male dominant persona over a subdued female’s fragile shadow. But a balance faith of both each with its own duties/responsibilities.

Only by sitting at Shabbat dinner with these people did I learn that the first prayer the men recite before the Kiddush is said it’s a prayer to thank their wives for all they do for them. In what other religion do the husband sing along and dance to thank their wives before the Shabbat’s angels are welcomed into the house in the most sacred day in the Jewish faith? This is not to depreciate the Jewish women, but to elevates them to the men’s level, to G-d’s level.

Panos, please do not get me wrong, I am just commenting on your comment, but I appreciate all your links and I love your reference to the halakhah (Jewish Law).

If you keep reading the link you sent us you can find this:
“ According to traditional Judaism, women are endowed with a greater degree of “binah” (intuition, understanding, intelligence) than men. The rabbis inferred this from the fact that woman was “built” (Gen. 2:22) rather than “formed” (Gen. 2:7), and the Hebrew root of “build” has the same consonants as the word “binah.” It has been said that the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah) were superior to the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in prophecy.”
Then, why should this religion be a faith for men to men???

Now, to reply to Herve, Ramon, Vicky and Simon: thanks for the comments. I am sorry that you cannot see what I see in my photos. But, hopefully the more I work at it, the better the intent will become clearer.
In any case, the whole point of using a flesh and the black and white should help with underlining the strong presence of these Orthodox Jewish women everywhere one turns and the dropping shadows of the males in the background should signify indeed their secondary by-standard role in a female-oriented every-day life where the women are the ones to run the show!
Now, if I were to go in the men’s partition of the synagogue, it will be different!!! But, I want to show the women because I am a Jewish woman and because nobody has ever cared to show they actually matter to the Jewish faith to continue. This is not only because they procreate but because when the husbands are out praying and working for cell phone companies and/or real-estate, they teach and raise the children, the ones who will carry on Jewish traditions to future generations.

This essay is not a matter of what religion is more right or wrong. There is not judgment or whether to read other religion’s sacred scriptures means repeating and therefore lying. The essay is to answer questions such as:
“Why are the men to do this and the women do that?” What’s behind it and how come it has worked so well for some many centuries for these religious people to live within such strict rules that we may see as weird, but for them are just another way to conform to G-d’s will?
How can they be so righteous to respect them all and still have such strong faith in a G-d that is so imposing in their lives that they barely have time to sleep?
(Now, if this will is right or wrong and if religion is a matter or conformism and control of fears, this is a whole other topic and I am not sure it could actually be a visual story at all, but rather the topic of many books already written!)

Lastly I wanted to thank Chris Bickford (aka The Boss), my first teacher because all I know about lighting I learned from “assisting” him for three months on an adventurous trip in the “deep southern borrows” of New Orleans!

Cheers,
Boss

Aldous Huxley in the introduction to Jiddu Krishamurti’s The First and Last Freedom (PDF):

“Organized religions, with their mediators, their sacred books, their dogmas, their hierarchies and rituals, offer only a false solution to the basic problem. ‘When you quote the Bhagavad Gita, or the Bible, or some Chinese Sacred Book, surely you are merely repeating, are you not? And what you are repeating is not the truth. It is a lie, for truth cannot be repeated.’ A lie can be extended, propounded and repeated, but not truth; and when you repeat truth, it ceases to be truth, and therefore sacred books are unimportant. It is through self-knowledge, not through belief in somebody else’s symbols, that a man comes to the eternal reality, in which his being is grounded. Belief in the complete adequacy and superlative value of any given symbol system leads not to liberation, but to history, to more of the same old disasters. ‘Belief inevitably separates. If you have a belief, or when you seek security in your particular belief, you become separated from those who seek security in some other form of belief. All organized beliefs are based on separation, though they may preach brotherhood’ The man who has successfully solved the problem of his relations with the two worlds of data and symbols, is a man who has no beliefs. With regard to the problems of practical life he entertains a series of working hypotheses, which serve his purposes, but are taken no more seriously than any other kind of tool or instrument. With regard to his fellow beings and to the reality in which they are grounded, he has the direct experiences of love and insight.”