“You, my friend, should be walking around with a camera all day”

Photos: Nachman Hellman

I always appreciated art. My wife Tzippy is a painter, and I found myself impacted by her work, able to appreciate what was being conveyed, but I never considered myself an artist.
I was visiting Eretz Yisroel in 2004 with a group of friends, and one day, they planned a trip to Yam Hamelech. I passed on it, reasoning that I hadn’t come to Eretz Yisroel to go swimming, and spent the day walking, just walking, through the alleys of the Old City.
I took a few pictures, and when I came home, I hung them up in my house: they seemed nice, and were a reminder of a beautiful place. But then people would come in and admire them, asking me where I’d bought them, and inside, I wondered if I could do this, if I should do this.
I finally summoned up the courage to go to a show, where I asked a very respected non-Jewish photographer to critique my work. He looked at it, and then at me. “Where’s your card?” he asked. “You, my friend, should be walking around with a camera all day.”
I started to take pictures then, and learned that what speaks to me most is authenticity: I don’t like to take posed pictures, or portraits. The beauty is in the randomness, the timing, the unpredictability: there is only One Artist, and sometimes, He lets us capture a moment.