Idan Arad
@idanarad
Landscape photographer based in Israel
There’s this unexplainable drive to go to places I haven’t been before. It has something to deal with that feeling of going somewhere and experiencing it for the first time. And that feeling is even stronger when it was hard to reach and once you are there, you are all alone, knowing you are one of few people who put the effort to get to that place. And then, that additional rush through your body when photographing the scenery, capturing it the way you see it, creating art.
"It is all that, that makes photography addictive."
I picked up a camera for the first time when I was 16. It was just for fun; I was already taking pictures of my friends at school with a very bad phone camera, and then I slowly started taking pictures of everything else: clouds, flowers, sunsets… I just enjoyed the process, always looking for interesting things, different perspectives, creating something from nothing. I slowly started to take things more seriously and so decided to upgrade to a decent camera when I was 16. I was always more on the creative side than the mathematical side, I just wasn’t good at it, neither I felt any spark of interest in it.
"Art was another story - so I decided to major in Art at high school and photography became my main channel to express all the creativity I had."
I didn’t want to work from 9 to 5 for 40 years and earn my freedom at retirement age. I want to travel, see the world, earn a living from something I truly enjoy doing, not having someone who tells me how and when to work. Just being free.
"There are two movies which really impacted me in that regard: “Into the wild” & “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”.
The latter mostly – a story about a grown man who never left his comfort zone his whole life, never did anything extraordinary in his whole life, and only at the age of 40+ he discovers the thrill of adventure and the rewards of getting out of your comfort zone. After watching that movie (several times), my biggest fear became wasting half of my life doing what is expected of me and not having the courage to do what I really wanted.
"My image creation and editing is inspired by this same vision of pursuing what I feel is right."
When I shoot or edit I try to focus on my own emotions, preferences and ideas without letting me be influenced by what other people may say or think. For example, not long ago I took this shot of the moon. My idea for the photo was to show the moon in all its glory, the same way I see it every time it rises at night. I couldn’t do that with one shot (technically) so I edited and composed the photo out of several so to match the way I wanted to present it. And that philosophy applies to all of the photos that I edit; I combine the raw reality that the camera captures and combine it with what my eyes, mind and body saw and felt at that moment that I took the shot. To do that, I use whatever is at my disposal, whether it is color adjustment or photo merging in photoshop.
"I definitely consider my photos as more of visual art than a clear representation of reality. I try to show more of what I felt than what I saw."
My mindset and my photography have definitely benefited from the 3.5 years of army service in the IDF (Israel Defense Force) as a combat tank commander, which I finished just six months ago. I can confidently say that the army service completely changed who I am today. It taught me so many things about life, but above all about myself. The most essential out of them all I believe, is that I realized that I am capable of a lot more than I initially would think. As part of the combat training at the army, you go through relatively extreme situations – spending 24 hours inside a tank with three other people without getting out once and hardly getting any sleep, for example. Those moments of extreme, where you are being pushed to your limits, those that you think you have, are the moments that change you and make you grow as a person.
"I am convinced that one has to be pushed to his limits in order to truly understand what one’s capable of."
The army taught me a lot more that I carry with me to this day in my personal life; it taught me what true responsibility is and how to keep going when it gets tough – “not giving up” has gotten a deeper meaning which reflects in many aspects of my life now. Although the army service is mandatory in Israel and it is definitely the hardest I’ve ever been through in my life both physically and mentally, I wouldn’t change a single thing. I would do it all over again. I think the service gave me a very big advantage compared to other people of my age around the world and I think it’s gonna help me not only in my photography journey, but in any aspect of life.
I’m still trying to figure out what my future will look like and in what direction I want to go with my photography. I’m still very young and only at the start of my professional photography career – I’m building myself as I go. I definitely want to keep showcasing nature and the outdoors in all its glory, to make people understand that without nature and mother Earth, we are doomed. So in the future I might get more into environmental awareness and try to incorporate that into my photography. Environmental awareness can be understood in different ways, and I would like to address both, actually. On the one hand it is about protection, knowing our impact and adjusting our behavior to safe the planet. On the other hand, it is about being aware of your direct precious environment and surroundings.
"Israel is a very small country and I grew up thinking there’s not a lot to see here. I mostly wanted to leave and travel the world... However, the more I traveled my country and explored it, the more I realized how much it has to offer!"
It’s only about 1000 km long, but in spite of that it has basically everything: Extreme desert landscapes, beautiful Mediterranean Sea, lush green mountains and even one snowy mountain in the very north. Especially in today’s circumstances, where flying around the world isn’t really an option, we are being confined to our national borders and need to deal with what our land has to offer. I think in that sense, the pandemic did some good. Personally I find myself traveling a lot in my own country, discovering places and landscapes I would never have thought to exist in Israel. So I guess the idea that even in the most terrible situations there’s something good to take away is really true, and life challenges us to find it, face it and use it. To be better.
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