Street Photo of the week by Ilan Ben Yehuda
Street Photo of the week by Ilan Ben Yehuda
Ilan is a charismatic Street Photographer born and raised in Ramat – Gan, Israel. He is a graduate of the Tel Aviv Camera Obscura photography school and is also a scholar of philosophy.
Like many other Street Photographers, Ilan works in the Graphic arts industry, designing for fashion mostly. Together with his studies as a photographer and his graphic design experience, he has managed to master visual communication and visual interpretation skills that can be considered important assets to any Street Photographer.
Five years ago when Ilan Ben Yehuda started shooting Street more seriously he passionately looked for subjects such as drug addicts, homeless etc. His work was more documentary oriented. He has now changed his style and looks for surreal situations that are not necessarily classed as photojournalistic, documentary photos, but more as pure Street Photography images that aim to make the viewer wonder, question, think about what he/she is looking at. Photos with a hidden, deeper meaning.
Ilan is part of the “APF” international photography collective. An entity of Artphotofeature Magazine, the APF Collective features the work of 25 talented photographers from around the globe. Their goal is to provide a collective, balanced storytelling vision of the world we live in. You can read more about “APF” and the rest of the members of this amazing collective at www.apfcollective.com.
You can see more of Ilan Ben Yehuda’s photographic work on his flickr account at https://www.flickr.com/photos/116685283@N05/, or on the “APF” website on the section about http://www.apfcollective.com/portfolio/ilan-ben-yehuda/ilan-ben-yehuda/.
Untitled
Ilan’s work is surreal and unique. His images can be interpreted in many ways depending on what point of view one looks at them. He is a master of black and white and a wizard with colour. Spending time looking through his collection of photographs on his flickr profile has been a fantastic experience for me. I wish I could see his photos in a book, in print. That would make the experience even more satisfying. That is how good Ilan’s work is in my opinion. As I do almost always when I am faced with the difficult task of choosing to feature one image from amongst many awesome ones, I just switch my brain off, open my heart and go with my gut.
This time I chose this Untitled photograph of what appears to be a man balancing on a thin rope on a beach. The surreal effect is apparent as the viewer instantly wonders what this is about. Questions such as “what is this man doing?” or “is he floating?”, “is he balancing?”, “how does he do this?”, “why does he do this?” start to formulate in the viewers mind. Instantly, upon the first of these thoughts a viewer makes, the photo becomes interesting and stimulates his/her brain. But Ilan’s magic doesn’t end there. Because this isn’t just an interestingly surreal photograph. It is also beautiful and geometrically perfect. Ilan chose to make the shot from an angle that makes the sky outline the man’s body perfectly. The sky itself in the photo is beautiful because of the obvious amazing clouds and the placement of the body within the frame simulating the photo’s diagonals splitting the image into 4 triangular parts. From all aspects, this photograph is extraordinary and unique!
Thank you Ilan Ben Yehuda!
About this weekly feature
As you know, every Friday we feature a photograph of a Street Photographer on our website. The Street Photographer that is featured is selected by the Street Hunters team.
If you would like to have one of your shots featured on our website, then please contact us by visiting https://www.streethunters.net/contact/, or join us on our Flickr Group or subscribe to our GooglePlus Page.
Thank you
