OREN HASSON
Iris to Iris
I have been a naturalist since childhood and doing photography throughout my adult life. I received an M.Sc. Degree at Tel Aviv University on bird behavior, and a Ph.D. at the University of Arizona on mathematical modeling of animal courtship. Shifting to working in front of a computer, or doing research in a lab, created a hole in me. I turned, to rescue, to my old love, photography. It gave me the excuse to go to nature, spend the time, absorb and create.
I was an autodidact photographer during my teens, using my parents› box camera. However, I began taking photography seriously at the age of 22, after permanently borrowing my mother›s new Topcon 50 mm fixed lens SLR camera.
I was much influenced by Israel’s first nature photographer, Peter Marom, and studied by heart the exposure information he provided in his book of Hula: The Dying Lake. I then read every photography book I could put my hands on. I first shot photographs exclusively in black and white, exploiting an abandoned darkroom, I found in Tel Aviv University, switching only years later to color slides. At the University of Arizona I permanently borrowed the single copy of a book demonstrating, with pages and pages of color tables, the zone system of color positives – an extremely useful tool for color slides photography, and an excellent entry to color management at the celluloid film era.
Read the full article on Israeli Lens Magazine Issue #11 Still Life Photography
