A: Hey there! Thanks for joining us and sharing a bit more about you. Why don’t you give us a little background info.
D: I’m 46, married and father of 3, live in the countryside in Israel and work in a chemical engineering company. I never studied photography but was always drawn to it. I publish on IG under the username @dot4n, and by same name on AMPt website for mobile photography.
A: What is it about taking photographs that moves you?
D: Taking photos allows me to process the visual stimulation which could otherwise overflow me. Editing images later is done under a strong sense that I must lift-up reality as it’s never good enough as it is, being too small and too local. Things must look unrelated, locations unidentified, reality disguised.
A: Do you have a favorite image?
D: One of my favorite images, not being a landscape as what you noted you liked, but a shot with a sense of mood that I highly relate to. Pic is made from two layers put together. One is of a man standing on the shore at the sea of Tel-Aviv. He is clearly an immigrant, dressed so differently to what local people do. The sky is a shot of a dirty window in my office cafeteria, dust smeared to resemble rain. This is probably the most exact story I wanted to tell of being far away, in a totally strange location with vast space, quiet and moody.
A: What do you think creativity is?
D: I don’t know what creativity is. I want to tell a story. I want to relate to others. I want to repeat myself as little as possible. There’s no deadline for publishing. Pics are posted when I feel they’re ready. And if posted too early I take them off.
A: Who are you inspired by?
D: Mostly, what I know of photography now comes form IG and AMPt. I am inspired by many users, mostly by those who aren’t afraid to be creative and post regardless of the popularity of their pics.
A: Was their a pivotal moment in your photography?
D: I don’t recall any pivotal moment. I thought it would happen with the next follower, but it was never different. Eventually it’s the inner discussion about what you believe worth posting and not the amount of feedback you get.
A: Do you think the number of followers matters?
D: Followers serve as false assurance. You always think that more of them would make you happier, but it never works this way.
Having many followers impresses only people with less followers than you do, if at all, but it does distract the attention from what you want to create to what would make your followers like and comment and to what would bring more followers.
A: What does community mean to you?
D: Community is anything that would make you belong and be less alone. On IG this feeling comes more from the comments I get than the number of likes. I don’t feel I need more than this. I don’t post on Twitter and hardly take any part on Facebook.
A: How do you think social media has changed how we share thoughts, ideas, photos?
D: Social media have become so common that people don’t regard the publication as something that requires self restraint or filtering on their thoughts. It’s not the case for me and I’m sure that also for other IG users. It’s always interesting to try and guess how much effort it takes for someone to share their pics. For me it’s always a struggle. My regular caption of plus-minus sign (±) also means that words don’t come easy, and ifthey don’t create any added value – better not be said at all.
About Author
Latest stories
Featured ArticlesApril 13, 2015The Storytellers Vol. 4
StoriesMarch 3, 2015Momdom
Anna CoxFebruary 24, 2015Captain and the Kid
Anna CoxJanuary 19, 2015Honest Moments by Caleb Stumpfl
Great stuff!
Thanks so much Anna! It’s so exciting to see this published here.
Thanks for introducing these fascinating works and some information behind the scene.