- Yigal Fileks

Yigal Feliks takes a close look at the lives of soldiers

Yigal Feliks's photos aim to highlight the distance between soldiers' lives and those of the people they protect

Photographer and lecturer at the excellent Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Yigal Feliks serves in the Israeli Army Reserve Service once a year. This doesn't mean that he sacrifices his art - he takes his camera and a photographic outlook on the world with him.

 

Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks
Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks

His series Army Reserves - War Games (2009-2011) is reminiscent of David Levinthal's images of toy soldiers made to look real - except Feliks' images are real soldiers made to look like toys. Feliks aims to show how the soldiers lives are separate from the people and the country they are protecting by using the very shallow depth of field to detach us from what is going on in the image.

 

Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks
Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks

"I serve with of a group of men of different ages who are defined by the army as an organic tank unit," he says. "We are detached from our daily routine, our place in society and our families. We put on a uniform, live together in the same conditions, eat the same food and work together at the same activity. In our hearts we share the same naïve hope that the next generation will not go through the same training each one of us needs to burden, and simply live their daily lives without fear." Find out more at Yigal's website

 

Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks
Army Reserves - War Games - Yigal Feliks