PhotoGraphs
form the exhibition "Dreams of Israel"
92nd Street Y, New York City
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
