Reaction Paper #2

Rosanne Milano

Professor Cyr

Art 144

December 21^st , 2015

            The other day my class and I had the privilege to have Natan Dvir come and speak to our class about his work.  Dvir is an Israeli photographer based in New York. His work is based on cultural issues and personal conflicts from his own experiences.  His work tells a big story about the people in the images and what’s going on in the image. A lot of his work is about the lives of the people he is photographing, creating a lot of drama and also a connection with the people in the images. He’s actually spending some time and getting to know the people. In his “Shirat Hayam” project he spent about three months with the family and were total strangers, and by the end of his trip he was the last person to see that family eat their last meal in their home. He became so know and popular by the people living there many of them wanted to wait for Natan to photograph them for the last time in their homes. You could sense the connection he made with these people and the effect he had on them in his time there. While in another project of his called “eighteen” you do get some sort of connection to the person by their room and surroundings but they also had these very uninviting expressions on their face which makes it seems like they almost did not want him to take their photo. I also like how Natan explained what it takes and the benefits of pursuing three different types of styles of photography. He said never intended to be a photographer and had no idea what art was. But he somehow made it and is very happy he did. This is very inspirational to anyone who may doubt themselves not just with art but with anything they think they can’t achieve. You never know you’re good at something until you try it at least once.