Last update - 00:00 15/12/2006
Haaretz photographers win prizes in local exhibition
The "Local Testimony" photography exhibition is to open on Monday in Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv, in commemoration of Lior Ziv, an IDF Spokesman photographer who was killed during an Israel Defense Forces operation in 2003.
The exhibition, held for the fourth consecutive year, shows Israeli photographic journalism of the past year.
The dozens of photographs on display have been chosen from some 4,500 entries to the Local Testimony competition.
This year's winners include the following Haaretz photographers: Uriel Sinai came first in the category of series of photographs documenting the results of Katyusha rocket landings in Haifa; Dudu Bachar came third in the category of series of portraits; Nir Keidar came second in the category of series of sports photographs and Nir Kafri came first in the culture and art category.
"When we started working on the exhibition, we wanted it to mark a turning point," wrote exhibition curator Yossi Nahmias. "We hoped it would be characterized by solidarity and be sensitive to political and economic injustice and deprivation in Israeli society in 2006... but the sequence of events of the past two months has created a completely different reality from anything we could have imagined at the start."
Beside the documentation of the stormy political events, the exhibition aspires to reflect everyday life as well. The show and accompanying text reflect Israeli reality wallowing in a marsh of its own creation while at the same time holding on to the hope that another reality is possible.