Life on the street as a photographer – a street photographer – is like making up your own personal interpretation of existence, the world according to (insert name here).
The photographic world of llan Burla is the streets of Tel Aviv. A captivating bubble of wonderfully realised photographs presenting us with a series of images, in turn, offering an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the Israeli street photographer. A Tel Aviv, which, according to the photographer, emerges as a series of humorous, quirky and near surreal images of his home town.
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Two ladies in something approaching psychedelic swimsuits are photographed from the rear, and we mean that in more than one sense. Burla’s angle of shot offers a fleshy exploration of the ladies’ rear as they, presumably, make their way from the beach to – again presumably – the shops. The ladies are contrasting, one ample one thin, with just the hint of a tattoo on the thinner woman’s thigh.
“I love humour in general,” llan told me. “My photography has humour. As I saw them (the ladies) it made me smile, and I knew, in that moment, what was the right angle to tell the story.”
What llan produces is a visual narrative featuring two fascinating women, presumably, coming from the beach and crossing a road, while drawing some attention from the public around them. They seem oblivious to what is happening as they go on their way. Meanwhile, a man to the left is taking a frontal shot of them as they approach him, while a man on the right hand side of the frame, and walking on a pedestrian crossing, looks a little bit bemused.
The ladies in their swimsuits, as Burla points out above, catch the imagination. The swimwear on the thinner woman has a kind of rainbow leopard print, while the other is a design around confectionery – ‘Smarties’, perhaps? They are both on the edge of psychedelic and framed from, let’s just say, an intriguing angle.
“Nothing, for me, is ever planned ahead,” llan explains. “I just go out and get ‘triggered’ by the scene in front of me, or the event, or the person that I think might be interesting. Yes, I like to get as close as I can to the scene. I want the viewer to smell the sweat of the subject, to feel involved, like they were actually there in person. Is it brave? Stupid? Rude? I guess a bit of them all.”
The idea of being able to smell the sweat of the subject, in a photographic sense, is a great line. Each time we look at a photograph our minds are working hard to determine what is happening within the frame. Even then interpretations of what we are seeing in front of us can differ between people, but actually getting to the odour of the person(s)? But, I can – to some extent – feel where llan is coming from.
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This is where, of course, context and interpretation clash. For me the man on the left of the photograph is holding a gun and holding it to the head of the other subject in the frame. But…
“It is a street, Purim, party (Purim is a Jewish holiday),” llan explains. “Everybody is having fun and has put on fancy dress. The hand with the ‘toy’ gun, does not belong to the guy to the left as we look at the photograph. There is a girl not in frame holding it. Again, the difference between what each one sees in the photo, the personal interpretation, and what is actually happening is not even close. This for me is the great power of street photography. Finding a fragment of everyday life and using it to tell a story.”
A story that is, as llan so astutely illustrates, open to interpretation.
Looking back it does seem thought-provoking that llan’s starting point in photography was ‘triggered’ (that word again) by the arrival of his son.
“I Bought my first camera as soon as my first son was born,” He said of the connection. ”Pretty soon I understood the power and possibilities in this ‘tool’, and just fell in in love with photography. As I got deeper and deeper, I realized that street photography is the kind of photography that I like and that I am challenged by, the most.”
There is tremendous insight in the above statement. Photography, of course, is a very powerful tool. You don’t think the fashion and advertising industries use photography for fun do you?
But, arguably, as Burla alludes, street photography is the most challenging and, perhaps, adventurous genre of photography.
“Each photograph I take,” He explains. “Has its own story. That’s what attracts me to the specific event at any one time. The photograph of the boy (below), well, it was his expression I was drawn to. The ladies it was the swimsuits for sure. I am doing it for a long time now… so I work quite automatically… ‘no time to think’. The processing of lining up the shot and taking it is happening right at that moment. In a split second. I guess it is also a matter of experience, and, of course, knowing who you are as a photographer.”
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The boy he refers to is a young man shielding his face against the heat of a fire with his hat.
“This is a Jewish ritual called ‘The Burning of Chametz,” Burla explained. “It happens before Passover, in the ultra-orthodox Jews cities. It is a big event and means a long day of shooting. And, this is one of the many photographs from that day, which, I think, is very interesting from a photographer’s point of view. The expression on his face was the first thing that caught my attention. Once home I figured that the scene looks like something from a war zone, and many people have agreed with this interpretation. But it is far from the truth. And, that is exactly why I love street photography, there can be so many interpretations..and the truth isn’t really important.”
Of course, llan’s statement above, is debatable, and while there can be differing interpretations of what we see in a photograph, once given the context of a shot that narrative can be changed – as from war zone to celebratory incident?
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But if context is everything a man lying on the ground with his head wrapped in a newspaper will have people scratching their head.
“Again it looks very dramatic,” llan admits. “Like the boy and the fire picture. But, the truth is that the man was lying down by himself on the newspaper he bought, and his wife took photographs of him. Why? I don’t know. I guess they were doing art of some kind. I knew that at a low angle, getting as close to the ground as possible, will make it look dramatic and enigmatic, so I got down. Then a gust of wind blowing the paper completed the story for me.”
llan Burla is a fascinating and compelling street photographer who shows that context influences narrative interpretation. It is a fascinating aspect of photography that Burla, for me, puts well and truly into perspective. It is a cliche, I suppose, to say that he has the eye, but he undoubtedly has.
Copyright ⓒ ILAN BURLA
Copyright ⓒ ILAN BURLA
Copyright ⓒ ILAN BURLA
Copyright ⓒ ILAN BURLA
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