Walkabout: Local photographer eyes everything from here to Prague
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David Aschkenas with several of his photographs at Rodef Shalom in Shadyside.
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One morning last fall, I signed onto my computer at work and began the process of getting rid of one after another worthless email -- delete, delete, delete, delete ... David Aschkenas.
I gasped. A respite from delete.
He had sent an electronic flip book of photos he took in Prague at the Old Jewish Cemetery. Since a visit there in 1993, I have carried my own mental images of the cemetery that is crammed with stone tablets from the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
During that visit, I stared at what looked like wreckage at first -- densely packed tombstone tablets leaning, fallen or broken. I couldn't help but think of bodies thrown into piles and landing however they landed.
It was a heart-wrenching reverie. Most of the upright stones had a small rock or more placed atop them to indicate a previous visitor.
My friends wanted to move on, and I was ready to follow when I noticed two tomb markers leaning and almost touching -- one badly pitted, the other with a softened edge like the shoulder of a coat.
At my computer, as I clicked the arrow of Mr. Aschkenas' images, I stopped to linger on one -- a softened corner of a leaning tombstone.
I am lucky to be a recipient of his photographs, which he sends from time to time. They come in the form of a slideshow that zooms back to the first image after you have clicked the arrow at the end. (Many are also on his website -- www.daschkenasphoto.com.)
Last fall, I got one of his slideshows from the Allegheny Observatory in Riverview Park, a gem of a place that many Pittsburghers don't know. His photos give it an aura that might have eluded even those who do.
Mr. Aschkenas, who has made his living as a commercial photographer for 30 years, became smitten by fine art photography right out of college. He had been a film major at Penn State University, but when he saw how a photo was born in its chemical bath in a friend's basement darkroom in Boston in 1972, he explained, "Photography took over. I started reading everything I could find and taught myself."
Monday, we met at the Rodef Shalom Congregation in Shadyside, which is hosting an exhibit of photos he took there. It is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will be up for several months. He also has a current exhibit in Prague, of synagogues he photographed there, at the Old Jewish Town Hall through 2012.
First Published February 7, 2012 12:00 am
