Friday, February 4, 2011

Nadav Kander


Nadav Kander is a photographer born in Israel in 1961, who grew up in Johannesburg. He started photography at 13 and now lives and works in London..
I discovered his work at Paris Photo 2009, as he just won the second Pictet Prize on the theme “Earth”. He is in fact recognized as one of the most original and highly regarded photographers of our time.
The photographs that really caught my eyes at that time were from “Yangtze, The Long River”, a project realized through several trips in China.
Large, empty, foggy and moody landscapes where the presence of men appears like the last soul on earth. An unbelievable feeling when you know that more people live along the Yangtze River’s banks than in the whole of the United States.
For me the images show both beauty and emptiness, even sadness. While first looking at them, you forget the meaning of the situation there to just see the harmony of the scenery; but after a little moment you understand the deep reality of what is in front of your eyes.
By looking at the pictures, you can sense what Nadav Kander was feeling when he was there: “I felt a complete outsider and explained this pictorially by “stepping back” and showing humans dwarfed by their surroundings. Common man has little say in China’s progression and this smallness of the individual is alluded to in the work.”
"China’s landscape both economically and physically is changing daily. These are photographs that can never be taken again."






Here is a video where he explains his work.





Nadav Kander has also photographed the entire administration of Barack Obama (photos published in The New York Times)
He’s also done great images of American landscapes.
  
Discover much more on:  http://www.nadavkander.com

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