The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey

The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey (2012) by Yaakov Israel

Yaakov Israel, The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey, (2012) Amsterdam Schilt Publishing.

An interview with Yaakov Israel

Yaakov Israel works with 8×10 and 4×5 inch cameras, he prefers this format because it slows down his process and due to the cost of the film disciplines him to be more careful to compose and expose to avoid wastes pictures. His work is motivated by social and political issues. In his work he constantly investigates the Israeli identity as perceived through architecture, landscape and the people living in his country. (PetaPixel) The title The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey came about from a incident when he was working a Palestinian riding a white donkey appeared out of a heat haze. ‘The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey’, which simultaneously represents the type of journey I had undertaken and the fact that my work is rooted in the idea of observing reality while searching for that elusive invisible layer, maybe nonexistent, and placing it within reach of reality. (Yaakov Israel).

Israel photographs and develops his own prints. He will work through the year taking and developing the negatives takes a quick look at them before storing them away in boxes. The next stage of the process doesn’t happen until the summer when he gets out all the boxes edits them and sorts them into the project topic, this is when he begins to get his ideas about what he is trying to do and when sometimes new ideas present themselves.

Israel does not location search as he has tried it and it doesn’t work for him, he said that when returning he doesn’t get the same inspirations; so he prefers just to go out and about looking for a location and spending however long it takes to get the photo, this could be within an hour or all day.