Omri Shomer, 34, has been a street photographer for 10 years now, Tel Aviv is his surroundings.
Sometimes he came home with a bunch of great pictures and sometimes nothing. Either way, the beach was always a place for him where nothing mattered, whether it worked or not, it did not matter.
Because the sea was washing everything, so his grandfather would tell him. If a man goes to the beach he does not need anything, Omri remembers that his grandfather would smile and say again and again. There is a feeling that the beach is a point of escape. Israel is a place where a person must escape, the economic situation is not simple, many businesses go bankrupt, entire families go into debt, finding work is not easy, salaries are problematic and the cost of living rises.The administration is perceived as problematic, but at the same time the people are not doing anything about it because they do not see a fair replacement for the existing situation.
Omri sees the beach as a place where you can shed the problems, wash away the social norms, the economic, the family pressure, to be who you really want to be. The funny thing is that you can meet all the people near the water line, those who have lost touch with reality, businessmen who work next to them, boys who make trouble, tourists who just landed and not understand yet where they came from.
“The sea seems to be so big”, Omri says, “which apparently gives us the feeling that our problems are so small. The beach It is not a regular place for street photography, it is a place for yourself, photography there is only a bonus”. [Official Website]
