From Michael Beckert’s interview with Michal Chelbin for the “Ways of Seeing” series for W:
How did you get into photography?
I started photography when I was 14, in high school. I wasn’t a great student, and I was also very shy and quiet. Looking back, I was really confused, and hadn’t been able to find myself anywhere. I had an opportunity to go to this art school, and there was a photography department, so I enrolled in it. The camera gave me a lot of power, and a lot of strength—it allowed me to direct people and find a voice. When you grow up in Israel, after high school, it’s mandatory for everyone to enroll in the army, so I was a photographer—that was the job I was assigned. I was just eighteen years old, and did that until I was twenty; I think that’s where my interest in uniforms come from.
Browse the exhibition “How to Dance the Waltz” at ClampArt
Browse the series “How to Dance the Waltz” at ClampArt
Browse all of Michal Chelbin’s work at ClampArt