Ariel Van Straten
The fundamentals of secret photography
Israel
English, Hebrew
At 17 I was Buki Nae’s photographer (one of the leading journalists for Maariv newspaper at the time). After completing my military service, I traveled for two years in South east Asia, Australia and Japan, ending my travels in London where I started my career in photography.
I worked for six years as an assistant for some of the worlds leading photographers (David Bailey, Barry Lategan, Corrine Day and others).
In 1996 I started my own way as a photographer shooting a campaign for SonyPlaystation which won me numerous international awards. Since then, I have been shooting fashion, advertising and musicians all over the world.
The fundamentals of discreet photography
From taking pictures in a hideout to taking pictures during a meeting in a café the eye needs to be listening, the heart ready and of course you need the right photographic equipment.
In this captivating lecture we will learn how to predict and adjust ourselves to photographing our target in the “field”.
How do you work from a hideout and how do you take photos when your target suspects you want to photograph him.
Sounds complicated?
Ariel Van Straten will simplify these situations and give us the right tools to go to work.
The last Sheikhs of the Negev
The Fascinating story of photographer Ariel Van Staten’s journey into the Negev desert to locate and photograph the “Last” Bedouin Sheikhs of the Negev.
A three-year journey, hundreds of days and thousands of kilometers of wondering in the Bedouin diaspora and townships of the Negev all gathered into a photographic exhibition to premiere at the artist house in Tel Aviv in early 2021.
30 Lifesize portraits of the Bedouin Sheiks that represent the different tribes, clans and families and tell the cultural story of the Bedouins of the Negev desert.
After 20 years in London developing an award-winning photographic career Ariel returned to live in Israel in 2006 to find a very different reality for the Bedouins of the Negev.
The tremendous change in Bedouin reality from his childhood in which he spent his time among the Bedouin who migrated in the Negev desert, pushed Ariel into a photographic documentary project documenting the sheikhs with the understanding that these sheikhs are the last generation before the Internet generation enters their shoes.
Smartphone workshop
Photography as a means to express our inner world. Why do we take pictures?
We take pictures in order to commemorate a moment, a place, a feeling or an atmosphere.
We look at reality with the will to photograph it, in order to show and to share what we experienced.
We purchase equipment and learn but still can not always pass that message or feeling we wanted to share.
It sounds so simple and natural and yet why don’t the pictures come out the way we want?
The answer in my opinion is that we have lost part of our feeling, excitement and part of our sense of adventurism.
We are so flooded with technology and the pressure to create and share immediately that we forget about the child within us.
The child that just looked and observed for nearly one year before he could speak.
We are flooded with the noises of life and don’t get the chance to be present at and with the moment.
The moment of taking the picture.
I would like to invite you to learn and investigate what we see and learn how to show it to our viewers.
To show and share our inner world through our pictures.
Through my personal story of a 12-year-old boy who held a camera for the first time and became an international award-winning photographer.
A self-taught photographer who lectures in some of the finest academic establishments in the country.