Featured Artist for the Week – Gilad Benari

Jun 19

Gilad is an amazing Israeli photographer, who captures breathtaking images in his gallery. He is one of the most notable photographers in Deviantart.

Please tell us a brief info about yourself:

Well, I was born in Haifa, a beautiful seaport city in north of Israel. I had the usual course growing up as an Israeli, and that means I finished my high school diploma and joined the army for three years. After the army I started developing my interests and career. I was a D.J. for a while, what lead me to a local radio station where I presented a night show, and did some copywriting for the ads and promos. After a while that copywriting bit became handy for the station managers, and they started sending me with the sales representatives to the clients. I helped simplifying the sale process for them. After a while, I started selling on my own, and that lead to my current career in media marketing, a position I still hold 13 years later.

At a point of this process my creative side, and my business thinking was split between my career on one hand, and my hobby on the other. I started writing short stories and poems (in Hebrew) and dreamed of publishing my writing in a book one day. In 1999 I found the Internet and started submitting my writing to an Israeli web site dedicated to art (like a local DeviantART). In the meantime, I also needed to get my career in media marketing going and that’s why I moved to the big metropolis – Tel Aviv.

The web site gave me huge satisfaction, and I loved the fact people liked my creative side and connected to it. In 2002 I discovered photography. I bought a small digital camera “Olympus c40” to help me document my newborn son, “Yotam”. That small camera changed my life.

How did you get into photography?

I started combining my writing and the shots I took. I tried to explore photography in a conceptual sense, to help me express and complement my writing. It wasn’t long until my photos got very popular. In late 2003 I got an offer to present an exhibition; I was very flattered.

I decided to make this exhibition a test for my “true talent”. I wanted to see if there was something genuine in my photography, or if it was just a phase I was going through.
I presented the photos with no writing nor titles (my copywriting that made the photos reflect what I wanted). I knew that if my pictures could stand on their own, there could be something real in my visual work. The exhibition was a huge success. I got media coverage, lots of visitors and good reviews.

I decided to take myself seriously and made myself two promises. The first was that any money I made out of photography would be put right back into gear and photography. The second was that in 10 years I would be a full time photographer. I decided to take 10 years to make sure I didn’t compromise my photography with doing wedding and such to survive, and I could build myself a reputation slowly while providing my family with steady income from my day job in media marketing.
It’s been 3 years now that I’ve been doing that, and it’s going great.

What camera do you use? What are the additional equipments do you use?

I use a Nikon D70 as my primary camera.
I use mostly wide angle lenses like the Sigma 10-20 and the Nikon 18-70. I also use Nikon 50mm F1.8 and the sigma 70-200 F2.8.
I use ND filters, and Infra Red filters as well.

I have a small point&shoot camera with me at all times – Nikon 8800.
I use Photoshop CS2 for the basic editing and RAW conversion.

Do you have a particular piece that you are proud of? And why?

My personal favorite is “fishing for stars”

Any advice to other enthusiast photographers out there who aspires to what you’ve achieved?

The best way to learn photography, is simply to photograph, and take pictures at the same time
I mean, you can learn a lot from books and schools, but you learn the most from simply taking pictures. A few years ago, it was hard to do that, because everything was so damn expensive.
But since the digital age has begun, learning has become very intuitive and easier.
You can learn what you did wrong, get immediate feedback on the net, and learn from your mistakes. I’m sure, some will need more help, but I believe that for autodidact people, It’s the best way.

For other information, please contact him at:

website: http://www.giladbenari.com/
http://gilad.deviantart.com/

wanna be a featured artist?
email me at: mcedesigns@gmail.com
with the subject: interview request

Featured Artist for the Week – Gilad Benari

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