Earth and the Human Imprint
Tova Beck-Friedman
Dubi Tal, First Draft, Northern Negev Desert
"A photograph is not just the act of an encounter between an event and a photographer; picture taking is an event in itself." —Susan Sontag
Trained as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force, Dubi Tal photographs the Israeli landscape while airborne. Recording the ever-changing natural and cultural features from an overhead perspective, he captures deserts, mountains and fields, as well as residential and industrial areas. So high and so small above a terrain so vast, Tal explains, "In the air, I come into pure direct contact with the acts of Genesis as they have become refashioned by human hands."
Tal’s creative use of natural light accentuates details we sometimes perceive as mundane, changing earth into a living relief map. Places we thought of as familiar turn into abstracted notations and the familiar landscape challenges our perceptions.
Flying above the plains of Sharon at dawn, he sees Cypress trees at the edge of an orange grove with elongated shadows still shrouded in mist appearing as sentinels. In Take 2, Jordan Valley, palm trees with exceptionally long early morning shadows are suggestive of serene, delicate Japanese calligraphy. In First Draft, Northern Negev Desert, a lone Cypress tree in the center of a burned field is protected by a circle of plowed earth, creating a composition of loneliness.
In a catalogue essay for Tal’s recent exhibition "Terra," Shosh Dagan, the exhibition curator states that Tal "shows us the power of nature and the impact human hand has had on the land." Indeed Tal does not shy away from portraying ecological disasters. For All that Glitter, Tal photographed the industrial waste of a chemical plant in Haifa Bay, depicting white foam of unknown chemical substances discharged into a water pool. In his image, toxins create a beautiful pattern.
