Introduction
The Faces of Jewish Rochester - 5767 is an example of “be careful what
you ask for, you may just get it”.
During the fall of 2005, I had the opportunity to visit the United States Holocaust Museum. It was a very moving experience and during the weeks following that trip, images from one of the galleries [the Tower of Faces] kept coming back to mind. In that gallery are photographs produced by Uri Katz who was a professional photographer from Lithuania. Mr. Katz, his wife and 2 assistants lived and worked there for many years before the Holocaust. The Tower of Faces gallery is filled with pictures representing their life1s work. It is a permanent installation at the Museum and, although I did not count them, there seemed to be hundreds of portraits and family photographs. I found the images very powerful. They inspired me to begin to think about photographing all the Jews in Rochester. A variety of other experience intersected with that visit. In the summer of 2005, I also photographed the photo archives for the JCC book, the Future begins with the Past. I was curious about who took the original photos and why they were taken. For some pictures the story was obvious while in others it was not so obvious. Fundamental to all societies is the premise that a photograph ascribes a degree of importance to a person or event. This is certainly true for all those who appear in these photos. What is important today is that through these photos they leave a legacy of memories for all of us today.
It is my hope that the Faces of Jewish Rochester - 5767 will also serve as a visual legacy to our community for years to come. I have been actively making science photographs in for more than 25 years. In scientific photography, the purpose of a picture is to make a semi-permanent record of a scientific endeavor in a way that describes an empirical fact without feeling or emotion. In personal photography the goal is quite the opposite. This exhibition was created to chronicle and archive Jews in our community in 2007. It is my hope that they will serve to generate emotions and memories for generations to come about Jewish community life in Rochester in 2007. When I discussed the concept of photographing as many Rochester Jews as possible, many I spoke to felt that this was a monumental endeavor and probably to complicated to achieve. I continued to pursue the idea and mentioned it to Leslie Berkowitz, executive director of the JCC. She was intrigued, excited and believed that we could make it happen. In September 2006, with the support of the JCC the Project began.
Although I am not particularly religious, being Jewish is important to me. I was raised Jewish, I married a Jewish girl and my children were raised Jewish. When I moved to Rochester in 1986, we joined a temple but that was the really the extent of my awareness of Jewish Rochester. As this project unfolded, I was amazed by the number of Jewish organizations that call Rochester home and the very rich tapestry they create in the community. The opportunity and responsibility to photograph these groups in interesting and appropriate ways was exciting and challenging.
Although I was unable to photograph every single Jew in Rochester, I believe that this exhibit serves as a very good representation of our community.. My vision was to create of a representative body of photography that captured and preserved The Faces of Jewish Rochester and I believe I was reasonably successful in reaching the objective.
The photographs in this exhibit represent my interpretation of what I saw when I arrived at each location. In many cases the groups assembled to take the photograph rather spontaneously. Although each picture is staged there was no forced structure in each photo as the group formed itself. In this fashion, it allowed me to capture the “people and their spirits”, which were exposed to me for just a very few moments. I wanted to include - where possible - the buildings and locations that are used for meetings and gatherings. Often I had very limited time to make pictures and conditions were less than ideal. Weather, time of day, composition, lens choice, and lighting all happened in front of me without too much choreography.
This project has been one of personal curiosity and learning. I was almost sure I could not photograph 22,500 people but I was also certain I would make many photographs of numerous [largely unknown to me] groups. I was inspired by the challenge of creating a visual legacy in this moment in time.
After making the photographs and preparing for the exhibition, I selected black and white as a printing strategy to emphasize the people. Because
color is such a powerful element in our daily lives the volume of colors an patterns in the 81 photographs was too overbearing and I decided to print
monochromatic pictures to place emphasis on the 5000+ people I was able to photograph in ways color does not allow.
In closing I would like to acknowledge those who made this project a reality. First and foremost would be my dear friend Leslie Berkowitz for
her unbridled enthusiasm and trust. It has been a source of inspiration during the very slow journey of producing this work. Had she not embraced
the idea, the photographs would never have been made. A special thank you to Phyllis Kasdin who has worked at the JCC for more than 33 years. Phyllis
seems to know everyone and was instrumental in opening dialogues for me using her connections. Risa and Warren Frankel served as volunteer chair people for this project. I thank them for their support and dedication to help make it happen. Other volunteers who were so helpful was Judy Ertishek and Merle Marcus. They were instrumental in reaching out to groups to arrange appointments for photography sessions and helped to open many doors for me.
As this adventure comes to an end, I am extremely pleased that I was able to photograph more than 81 groups, which includes (by my rough estimation) more than 5000 people. I feel very fortunate to have a career that takes me on this kind off adventure. Doing this type of work would not be possible without the complete love and support of my wife Laurie and my children, Jonathan and Leah. Their ever present interest in my projects gives me the courage to try new things and be creative when I am tired. Last but certainly not least I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to all of the organizations that participated because without their assistance and full cooperation, no photographs could have been made. I hope they are pleased with how I photographed them. They themselves created the content for this project and I simply interpreted them in places that made sense.
Michael Peres
October 2007
