He has won multiple awards for a portfolio that includes politicians, royalty, fashion models and film stars. He has photographed the likes as Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Stiller, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and is regarded by some as one of the world’s most exciting fashion and portrait photographers.
But it is the world of Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis and their families that forms the unlikely subject for Frederic Aranda’s first solo exhibition, “Kosherface,” which begins this week in London.
Photographer Trains Lens on Far-Flung Chasidic Community
He has won multiple awards for a portfolio that includes politicians, royalty, fashion models and film stars. He has photographed the likes as Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Ben Stiller, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and is regarded by some as one of the world’s most exciting fashion and portrait photographers.
But it is the world of Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis and their families that forms the unlikely subject for Frederic Aranda’s first solo exhibition, “Kosherface,” which begins this week in London.
“It all began when I was a student in my final year,” recalls Aranda, who started to explore portrait photography as an alternative to painting while studying at the University of Oxford.
“I was looking through the classifieds for a place to live,” continues the photographer. “I responded to an advertisement for a room in a Jewish house. When Rabbi Eli and Freidy Brackman opened the door of the Chabad House, I immediately realized this was an Orthodox Jewish home.”
Although not particularly observant, Aranda saw living in the Oxford Chabad House as an opportunity to experience and learn more about his own cultural heritage.
“My previous experiences of Orthodox Jews made me think that it would be difficult and perhaps even uncomfortable living there as a non-religious Jew,” he reveals. But, “my expectations were shattered. I could ask them anything without them judging or coercing me.”
Over the course of the year, Aranda transformed his attic room in the Chabad House into a makeshift photographic studio.
“By that time,” he describes, “I was using photography to record my fascination for the world around me: things that were important to me and made an impression on me.”
It was on the occasion of the circumcision of the Brackmans’ son Mendel that Aranda started to photograph the Lubavitch community.
“The house was full of people and I saw it as an amazing opportunity for me to get portraits of this fascinating world in which people define themselves first and foremost as Jewish,” he details. “I got them to come up one by one into my room and sit for me.”
Impressed
“Photographing women in Lubavitch was very refreshing because, contrary to expectations, they are very strong, know who they are and what they want,” he says. “I’m used to photographing models and for once, this is a group of women who aren’t interested in prioritizing vanity and fashion. They’re actually thinking about more important things, and there is a lot more there to photograph.”
Here’s someone who recognizes the beauty of a true Lubavitch Chasida. We need to pass along this message to our daughters, especially in todays’ day and age where it’s harder to keep that focus.
tee ess
Extremes.
Vanity and no depth. Depth with no value of the skin.
Wish we can learn to have balance. All aspects are valuable.