Dan Porges is an American Israeli photographer. He is a graduate of the "Art Center College of Design" in Pasadena, California where he studied commercial photography. Upon graduating he moved to New York City where at first he assisted famous photographers such as Henry Sandbank, Joe Toto and Garry Gross. A couple of years later he started freelancing as a fashion and advertising photographer.

In 1996 he returned to his native Israel where he started to do portrait photography.

 

Before and while photographing his subjects, Dan Porges softens them up with small talk and a friendly conversation. He has a very direct style where his subjects usually look straight at the lens and talk to the camera with their eyes. Porges also looks for his subjects best facial side and using proper studio lighting makes them look their best.

 

As a result he has been commissioned to take the portraits of some of the most prominent people in the world both in and outside of Israel. He has photographed some of the most important politicians, writers, musicians and artists in the world.

 

His portraits of Prof. Aaron Ciechanover and Prof. Avram Hershko, the Israeli Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry in 2004, and Prof. Robert J. Aumann, Nobel Prize winner in Economics in 2005 were published in the Nobel committee books and are on the Nobel Prize website.

 

Between 1999 and 2010 Porges was commissioned eight times to take the official portraits of the Israel Prize winners.

Of course, Porges will photograph regular people too.

 

Understanding music and rhythm and being a portraitist has helped Porges take some breathtaking musical and dancing portraits. He has worked for many orchestras, among them the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

This way Porges has portrayed many internationally famous musicians, his photos were published worldwide. Images of violinist Itzhak Perlman were used by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in a special book that came out for a White House ceremony in Dec. 2003, when Maestro Perlman received an award from President George W. Bush for his life time achievements.

 

The photographs of Maestro Zubin Mehta conducting have been widely published as well. The images of Maestro Gustavo Dudamel Have been used worldwide too. One image of conductor Dudamel was used on the cover of Observer Magazine. Another image was used for a Rollex ad.

 

Being a people photographer Dan has been commissioned to photograph in many events too. In addition to all this Porges likes to hike and travel. He been taking some wonderful pictures on his travels. These pictures are also published around the world.

Porges will travel when commissioned.

 

Dan Porges is represented by:

Getty Images : www.gettyimages.com

Arena Pal, Perfoming Arts Library: www.arenapal.com

TopFoto: www.topfoto.co.uk

Alamy Stock Photos: www.alamy.com

Fotofinder: www.fotofinder.com

Quotes:

To Dan Porges, the man who has the eye of an eagle, thank you for the great photographs you took of me.

(Shimon Peres, President of Israel)

I told my wife I have been photographed by many photographers. Looking at the results I always thought I looked better in real life than in the photos, except for in the images Dan Porges took, where I looked better in the photos than in real life.

(Prof. Avi Ravitzky, Jerusalem)