Josef Koudelka

In 2008, Gilad Baram was a third-year photography student at the Academy of Art in Jerusalem, when he got a unique opportunity to work alongside the world-famous photographer Josef Koudelka. This came about thanks to a project called This Place – the brainchild of French photographer Frédéric Brenner. His idea was to get 12 internationally acclaimed photographers to explore the complex nature of Israel and the West Bank, as a place and metaphor. The impressive line-up of 12 photographers who took part in the project included Koudelka, Brenner, Gilles Peress, Stephen Shore and Nick Waplington. Koudelka was the first photographer from the group who came to Israel, and Baram was the first student to be picked out from his year as a photographer’s assistant. Baram reveals: “We were just kind of thrown together. We had no clue what it was going to be like.”

Over a period of four years, and seven separate shoots, Koudelka and Baram bonded. What started out as a stills-only project developed into Baram filming Koudelka’s movements and modus operandi on a day-to-day basis, which slowly saw a strong mutual trust building up between them.

“Getting to know each other was a very long process,” says Baram. “He [Koudelka] is not an easy guy. I think he was very suspicious towards this project in Israel. It was a very long time before he signed a contract offered to him. He’s extremely cautious with things he