– capturing the ongoing conflict in his homeland of Israel on film. He has served as a photographer for the Israeli army, the Prime Minister and an Israeli daily newspaper. In 1994, Koren’s image of a suicide bomb attack on a Tel Aviv bus, which left 23 dead, brought him national attention as the shot landed on the front page of the New York Times.
A few years later, Koren opted for the world of freelance and began focusing on photographing people to tell their story – such as the award-winning “Louai Mer’I, a Sergeant, is Going Home,” which follows an injured soldier’s painful rehabilitation.
In a profile by Canon Ambassadors, Koren said, “I try to cover conflict, people, poverty, aid, immigration and war. I try to tell a story that can open up a view that people were not aware of previously.”
Koren is now an international photojournalist and his work routinely appears in Time and Newsweek, among others “The sheer volatility of the region in which [Koren] lives and works, the rise of suicide bombers, and the ever changing face of Israeli politics made him (and still makes him) one of the chief documentors of a fascinating but bloodcurdling period in Israel’s history,” states the Canon review.
Syd Padgett, owner of Oddfellows Art Gallery, took a long shot in mid-December and contacted Koren. Within a day, Koren personally and positively responded. Over the next month, through a flurry of emails, Koren and Padgett planned the Augusta exhibit. “I hope this exhibit gives the people of Augusta a wider view of the situation [in Israel]. The pictures of the soldiers with the children are especially eye-opening,” says Padgett. Poignant, gritty and heart-breaking at times, Koren’s photographs expose a reality with which most Americans have no connection – a country and a people torn by war.
Koren’s exhibit will run through the end of April at Oddfellows Art Gallery, 301 8th Street in downtown Augusta. Find Oddfellows on Facebook.
ZIVKOREN.COM
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