Avi Ohana

I recently made an unplanned trip to Sydney, Australia. Whilst there I made a special effort to find out about the art scene in this thriving, young city. I'd done the usual million pictures of the opera house from every angle and decided to explore 'The Rocks' area adjacent to Circular Quay.  The Rocks is an interesting area with many of Australia's oldest buildings, the stansion of the Harbour bridge emerges from around here too. It's a big tourist trap, the big cruise liners dock and off load their passengers directly.

Avi Ohana has a gallery and studio at Gallery B3 Harbour Rocks Hotel in the back streets along Nurses Walk. I was drawn to find out where it was by an article I'd seen in an Australian magasine Digital Photography Portraits. He was in the gallery on the day I visited and I was able to have a short chat with him in between talking to prospective clients. Originally from Israel, Avi is widely travelled and made Australia home in 1991. Three years later he set up 'Celebrity Vogue Photography and Seductive Art Gallery.'  He's largely self taught and has a relaxing, confident, unassuming  manner

He does commercial portrait photography and specialises in nudes usually in black and white as he says it simplifies the world as we see it - dramatising and sharpening our view. He showed me his studio, his philosophy on equipment is not to stick to one brand in particular for anything but to be prepared to use whoever has the the ideal kit for the job. He mixes lighting and camera equipment prefering no one. He also sells his own work and invites models for his art work who sign a model release.

He showed me an image on his Mac that he and 6 others had been working on in Photoshop, a beautiful reclining nude woman. He was unsure about the cleavage area and was 're aligning' it. He clicked back to the original shot and I took an involuntary gasp as the 'beautiful nude' was replaced by a very old, naked lady.  Thank goodness for Photoshop.

There were many of his works on display, I was particularly drawn to the one below.

Entitled 'Marion' this work regularly sells for around $6000 and has been used (minus nipple) by the United Nations for a convention on womens' rights. Interestingly, Avi told me it had been submitted to the 'Head On' Portrait competition and was rejected outright with no explanation, it did not make the first selection process.  He wasn't particularly bothered but explains he continually faces certain preconceptions and misguided intolerance of artistic nude photography.

Avi's Advice

:Photoshop is a tool, if you think your image can be improved with a touch up then use Photoshop to assist in doing so.

It is important to visualise the final image in your head, and not only see what's in the frame.

There is no limit to what you can learn in a life time, experiment and look at other peoples' work.

If you are passionate about photography go pro.

Don't sell your services cheap.

Appreciate your own artwork for what it is.

Some of the best images ever made were created by equipment now considered archaic. It's not about the equipment.

Acknowledge the trust that your subject places in your hands: emotional bounaries are too easily crossed if not respected

Avi gets a full 12 page spread in the magasine article (no adverts) and was engaging and pleasant to talk to. His images were truly beautiful. His works are ultimately destined to be transformed into hard contrast black and white artistic pieces and he prefers to shoot using harsh lights, maintaining that soft lights create flat images, harsh lights creat curves. Judge for yourself.

His web site is

http://www.celebrity.com.au/

with lots more images and well worth a look.

Avi says it's not easy to create a really good image from a person without clothes on. With this in mind he thinks that women feel more comfortable with their bodies and emotions in their 40s, whereas for men it is more common to be comfortable a lot earlier in life (around their 20s.) We continued talking about this and I explained I'd only got my Radiographic experiences to call from where generally the more ill a person was the less they rightly cared about other issues, although respect for the patient was a priority for us.