New York photographer
Todd Weinstein, a
native Oak Parker,
comes home to show
his photographs in a
new exhibit at the
Janice Charach Epstein
Museum/Gallay.
SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHOTOS BY TODD WEINSTEIN
Top: New Russian immigrants, Berlin.
For 11 years, he maintained
the Union Square Gallery in
New York and let artists use it
Above: Reflection, Three Generations. without charge.
"Ernst died in 1986, and in
1991 I became a consultant to his estate to work on a 100-image
exhibition," Weinstein said.
"There was the color retrospective book as well as a black and white book to
do... It was time for somebody else to take on a free gallery."
Weinstein, who is single, has little time for interests beyond photography as
it becomes an expression of his personal spirituality. His home is filled with
photographs, including "Nevada Sky," a favorite from Haas' book The Creation.
`The image looks like the sky is separating, almost as if it is showing the first
light," explained Weinstein, whose studies at Congregation B'nai Moshe were
another influence in his spiritual outlook.
"Haas was the first artist to illustrate the creation through photographs, and
his work becomes a very poetic interpretation," said Weinstein, who captured
the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camps as
the second phase of his work in Germany. The next phase will be devoted to
One by One, an organization working at uniting the children of Jews and Ger-
mans who lived in Europe at the time of the Holocaust. ❑
Left: Elderly Home, Munich.
`While I was in high school, I transformed what I thought was a worthless
negative into an image that won a Scholastic Award and realized that the cam-
era offered a way of exploring the world and myself" Weinstein recalled.
"I received a scholarship to the Center for Creative Studies in 1969 and, in
the summer after my freshman year, became one of the first photographers for
Creem Magazine, a national rock publication.
At the end of that summer, Weinstein decided to move to New York to study
photography privately and served as an apprentice to Ernst Haas, who became
his mentor.
During the 1970s, Weinstein experimented with high-speed color negative
film, and he refined his technique throughout the '80s. In 1991, he self-pub-
lished a retrospective collection of his photos in the book Todd Weinstein, Per-
sonal Journalism: A Decade of Color Photography, 1980-1990.
Weinstein began teaching his craft in the early 1970s and has been associ-
ated with the Tisch School of Photography, the Maine Photographic Workshop,
Pratt Institute and the Fashion Institute of Technology.
The artist also accepted corporate assignments.
"Commercial photography allowed me to enter worlds that I otherwise would
not have entered," Weinstein explained. "I could photograph someone laboring
in a coal mine as well as the president of the corporation employing the min-
er. That range has helped me artistically."
Et 'Darkness Into Light: Re-Emergence of Jewish Culture in Germany"
will be on display through Oct. 17 at the Janice Charach Epstein Muse-
um/Gallery at the Maple-Drake Jewish Community Center, 6600 W. Maple
Road, West Bloomfield. Gallery hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednes-
day; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. For more informa-
tion, call (810) 661-7641.
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