The Upsherin Ritual and The New Year for Trees

Most people are familiar with the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, but less commonly known is the festival of Tu B’Shevat – the new year for trees, which takes place on the 15th day of the Hebrew lunar month of Shevat which in 2023 falls at sunset of 5th February till the evening of Monday … Read more

Make Some Noise! Images of Purim & Percussion

This year I was invited to a Purim party held in London’s Stables Market, organised by the Chabad Rabbi for Kentish Town and Camden, seen below and appropriately for Camden Town sporting a fuchsia-coloured punk mohawk wig. The Jewish Festival of Purim is a celebratory story of survival over annihilation. The Megillah records the story … Read more

Japan: tradition and modernity in popular culture

I recently saw an advert on the London Underground from the Japan National Tourism Organisation who have launched a campaign entitled Japan – where tradition meets the future and it reminded me that I’d been meaning for a while to write a post on this very theme. I wanted to examine this theme using images … Read more

Venice Carnival Part 2: Coriandoli, abstracts and fleeting moments

The first part of my tribute to this year’s Venice Carnival concentrated on images of masquerade and fancy dress. In this second part I focus on found street abstracts featuring coriandoli, Italian for confetti, a traditional decorative feature of the Venetian carnival. The pavements and squares are strewn with it. Here’s a picture of my … Read more

Let it all hang out: observations on washing & identity

I take a lot of pictures of building facades and over the years some of these have been because of the juxtaposition of the architecture with the personal  artefacts displayed. On a recent trip to Venice my eye was drawn to what seemed a quite surreal combination of an old weather-beaten apartment and professional, ultra-modern … Read more

Purim, ritual and ancestry

Out of all the Jewish festival and holidays, Purim, which begins this evening, is one which resonates with me fondly. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the original story of Purim took place in Ancient Persia, apparently in the 4th Century BC.  My family originally hailed from Mashhad in Iran, so there is a … Read more

Ancestry & Ritual: Persian Jews in 1950s London do Christmas lunch …

When my father died I made sure I kept his old box of loose, predominantly black and white personal photographs. I found them more interesting than the bound albums which had more formal, traditionally “presentable” images often taken at weddings and bar mitzvahs by commercial photographers or selected posed photographs on holidays and birthdays.  Here … Read more