Balat in Istanbul, Turkey has been one of my favorite sites of photography for years. As the restoration of this town which had been abandoned by it's prosperous inhabitants mostly Non Muslims, long ago, now receiving the attention and support of UNESCO and The European Union, I felt the urge to bring my contribution portraying the lives of the recent inhabitants, working class migrants and multichildren families.
Walking the streets of Balat with my camera where ropes with colorful laundry drawn from old balconies across the street, dance to the tunes of their folk music sounding through open windows is commonplace, happy children, nice to passers by, play their marble games on the dusty ground, as cars carefully navigate around them, before they are called home for dinner by anxious mothers. I observe: Balat has a magic where it's rich cultural past always reigns it is somehow passed onto the new dwellers regardless who they are.

View  Slide show:  PROJECT 1

Project 2

Jaffa South-Western part of the city, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, includes a port on the Mediterranean Sea, and it is also one of the most ancient port cities in the world. It is said that Jaffa Port hosted shipments of wood sent by King Hiram of Tyre on rafts, for the building of the first and second Temples.
North of the port a beautiful beach stretches and connects the modern Tel Aviv It is in this from the port to the beach that a metamorphosis takes place, as the people vary in their appearance custom and behavior. These "Timeless" images  are examples of such occurrences.

View slide show:  PROJECT 2

 

PROJECTS