72-year-old Israel Prize winner Alex Levac was given due honor at the Israeli Photography Conference this week, but he’s not ready to retire just yet.
By BARRY DAVIS72-year-old Israel Prize winner Alex Levac(photo credit: ASHER AZULAY)
Photographers, like artists in any discipline, tend to develop into all sorts of channels of expression. But at the end of the day, art must necessarily draw from life, both in a thematic sense, and in terms of the energy feed.That certainly resonates comfortably with Alex Levac, who was the guest of honor at the 11th annual Israeli Photography Conference scheduled yesterday at Tel Aviv University.The topical linchpin of the whole event was photography from around the world. On the program were talks by an array of celebrated professionals, including feted Canadian-born New York-based Joey Lawrence, American travel photographer, videographer and writer Elia Locardi, and Pulitzer- and Emmy Award-winning Los Angeles Times photographer Barbara Davidson.You could say that Levac is a phenomenon. Now 72 years old, he has been at the top of his game for three and a half decades, documenting the ordinary Moshe and Sara on the Israeli street, through the long running berth Haaretz Shelanu (Our Country) in the Haaretz newspaper, and publishing several tomes that were well received around the world. He has also exhibited his prints here, in the United States and around Europe.Levac was introduced to the magic of photography as a teenager, when his father bought him a basic Brownie camera. The same parent dabbled in official documentation, rather than the art of photography or even taking snapshots, which also helped to spark the youngster’s imagination.Photo by Alex Levac (photo credit: ALEX LEVAC)“He had a souvenir shop, when the British Army was here, at Kastina junction – that’s Malachi junction today – where he’d take passport pictures of British soldiers,” Levac recalls, adding a humorous anecdote.“One day 30 soldiers from Senegal came to him to have their pictures taken – he took them one after another – but he forgot the prints in the fixer. The next day the soldiers came to see the photos and they saw they all came out white. My dad became very popular with the Senegalese soldiers after that,” Levac laughs. “They all wanted to have their pictures taken by him.”Levac’s enduring fascinating with his social milieu was evident from the outside.“I mainly took pictures of people, with my Brownie,” he says. Mind you, he took an antithetical approach to his current artistic ethos. “I think most of the pictures I took back then were set up. I’d go up on to the roof of our building in Tel Aviv. My mother had all these figurines, which people used to put on their radios, all sorts of African pieces. I’d put them on the parapet and wait for sunset, and I’d photograph the shadows. It was very romantic,” Levac chuckles.
He soon took his burgeoning a craft a necessary step further, and all under his own steam.“I began developing camera films in the bathroom at home,” he recalls. “I learned that by myself. I was mesmerized by that – seeing a picture reveal itself before my very eyes. That was magic.”Working in domestic confines was not without its logistical pitfalls for all, and almost nipped the youngster’s photographic exploits in the bud. “Once I poured the developer chemicals into the bathtub without noticing that my mother had put some fish in it, which she’d planned to cook later. The fish had to be chucked out. That was almost the end of my lab.”Things became a little more professional for Levac when the editor of the Maariv Lanoar youth paper, a poet called Moshe Ben Shaul, who was a friend of Levac’s, asked him to take a few snaps for the paper.“I didn’t take many photographs while I was in the army,” says Levac. “After that I got back into photography, but I never thought it would become a serious pursuit. My father bought me a Rolleiflex camera, and then I got into photography more seriously, but I never imagined I would make a career out of it. I did a degree in psychology and philosophy, and then I went abroad. I think it was when I was out of the country that I really began thinking of becoming a professional photographer.”Levac spent a year in Brazil, and increasingly began taking note of the human landscape around him.“By that time I had a Leica [quality German camera]. I think I actually started taking pictures of people, rather than views, while I was still in Israel, but the idea crystallized in Brazil.”His training in psychology may have come into play too.“I started noticing everyday situations, with people, which could be good pictures,” he says.The young Israeli was having plenty of adventures. He worked as a deckhand on a ship that plied the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Portugal, and spent a short time on a yacht which set out to circumnavigate the world. “I met this guy in the Mediterranean who said he wanted to sail around the world, and I thought, why not? But he turned out to be a big antisemite, so I left before we entered the Atlantic Ocean.”Levac eventually gravitated to London, and it was there that he really threw in his lot with the photography profession.“I had a friend who was studying cinema there at time,” says Levac. The pal in question was Boaz Davidson, who was to become famous for directing several iconic Israeli cinematic works, such as Lul and the first four installments in the wildly popular Lemon Popsicle comedy series, and ended up in Hollywood.“Boaz said I should come over to London and, when I got there, he suggested I studied photography at the London College of Printing.”The young Israeli, now in his mid-20s, finally got a formal education in the art of photography. He did the full threeyear course there, and began to feed off the multifarious spread of colors, cultures and sensibilities that abounded in the British capital in the late 1960s.“I got there in 1968, that was the heyday of swinging London and all that,” Levac says with a smile. “I didn’t really get all of that – I was still a bit of a naïve Israeli back then – but I met people from all over the world. That was fascinating.”Levac also branched out a little, into a different field of the art. “The British are very good in documentaries, so I did a bit of that too.”Levac was in London while some pivotal slices of cultural history were in progress.“I did a photographic project on the skinheads – they were a bit scary – and I took pictures of the punk rockers, including Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. It was right at the beginning of punk, and no one really knew them at the time.”After London, Levac returned to Brazil for a couple more years, with jaunts to Paris and Los Angeles betwixt, and returned here in October 1973, when the Yom Kippur War broke out. He was not a combat soldier and, in the end, he wasn’t called up but he stayed on nonetheless.He furthered his socially-oriented photography endeavor and, in 1981, documented the neighborhood renewal project in Ashkelon. He also worked for the populist Anashim (People) weekly and later for the Hadashot daily.LEVAC PRODUCED a ground-shaking item in 1984, when he photographed one of the four Palestinian terrorists who hijacked a bus near Ashkelon, in the infamous Route 300 Affair. Following the attack, conflicting reports were released by the authorities as to how many of the terrorists were taken alive. At one stage the IDF claimed that all four had been killed in the Israeli rescue operation, but Levac’s print clearly showed one of the hijackers being led away from the scene in good health.When Hadashot closed down, in 1993, Levac moved to Haaretz and made his mark there with his popular Haaretz Shelanu slot, in addition to publishing a handful of books, which often touched on sociopolitical issues.So how did Levac develop such a keen eye, and the ability to capture such intriguing slivers of everyday life? Sometimes it is hard not to think that his pictures are set-ups.“You’re not the first to suggest that,” says Levac with a smile. “Sometimes I wait hours for a situation to arise, and sometimes I perceive some element which I think has potential, and then I wait for something to happen next to it. It doesn’t always work out.”It is also a matter of practice makes perfect.“Over the years you develop a certain skill. You grasp things more quickly. You know, you have a deadline, and I’d be quite tense to begin with. I’d take three cameras with me to the street, with different lenses. I was hysterical and, when you’re hysterical, you don’t notice things. But, over the years, you develop a sixth sense, and you realize you can get the job done with just one camera and one lens.”Levac has been doing that for many years now, to sustained great effect, as well as working with Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy, who writes about issues relating to Palestinians in the territories.Levac also notably displayed his photographic finesse in a couple of cookbooks published by former partner Sari Ansky There are few more turgid and uninspiring photographic formats than cookery books. The world is awash with such tomes which generally portray the desired results of the recipes in photos that don’t exactly get the salivary glands working. But Levac’s presentations of Ansky’s gastronomic creations were works of art and made the dishes look finger-lickin’ good.Surprisingly, PC-dictated world notwithstanding, Levac says the job of catching people unawares on the street has become a little easier.“In the past there weren’t that many photographers around, so people would notice you. Today everybody takes pictures so I can blend in more easily.”The powers eventually got around to giving Levac his due, and in 2005 he was awarded the Israel Prize for his photographic work. Officially semiretired, today he continues to scour the country for intriguing spots and situations to snap.“Look at this,” he says, showing me a beautifully crafted print he recently took at a yoga gathering at Timna Park, not far from where he now lives in the Arava. “I took the picture from far away to capture something of the ambiance. You couldn’t do that close up.”Between roaming around looking for interesting stuff to shoot, Levac also volunteers at a mental health institution in Pardesiya. “I run a weekly photography activity for people suffering from schizophrenia,” he says.“People tell me how great it is that I give of my time, but I tell them I get so much from it myself. I was brought up to give.”As we parted, I asked him where he was going to taking pictures on the morrow.“I don’t know,” he replied thoughtfully. “I’m sure I’ll find something.”