{"id":29778,"date":"2018-08-24T03:46:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T10:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=29778"},"modified":"2018-08-22T14:06:49","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T21:06:49","slug":"tikkun-olam-through-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/08\/24\/tikkun-olam-through-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Tikkun olam through photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

With his photos, Liron Gertsman hopes to raise awareness of environmental issues. (photo by Liron Gertsman)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Recent Vancouver high school graduate and award-winning photographer Liron Gertsman is heading to the University of British Columbia to study biology. His main passion is taking photos of nature, particularly birds, in the hope of sparking in viewers feelings of love and awe for the environment, leading to improved conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe people need to see the natural world if they want to protect it, so I try to do that through my photos,\u201d Gertsman told the Independent<\/em> in an interview.<\/p>\n

From as young as 5 or 6 years old, Gertsman spent a great deal of his spare time walking around his neighbourhood, keeping an open eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround that time, my parents gave me a blue miniature camera,\u201d he recalled. \u201cRight from the start, I began taking pictures of birds and nature … and it grew and grew until, when I was 12, I bought my first personal DSLR camera equipment. And, since the very start, I\u2019ve loved birds and have been fascinated by their behaviours … and have done my best to photograph them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gertsman\u2019s love of nature does not seem to have come from his parents, who are both businesspeople. His dad is a real estate tax consultant and his mom is an accountant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big combination of things,\u201d said Gertsman. \u201cA lot of it was self-learning things \u2013 reading on the internet, reading books, and there were [other] influences because the bird-watching community is very large…. I would go attend bird walks and meet people that way. My Grade 2 teacher was a really big environmentalist and created an environmental conservation club at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Cobalt-winged parakeets. \u201cTo get this photo,\u201d said Liron Gertsman, \u201cI waited for hours three days in a row in a blind in the hot and humid rainforest of Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.\u201d (photo by Liron Gertsman)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now that he is heading to UBC, Gertsman is not sure if he will integrate photography with research on birds, or if he will become a professional nature photographer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of biologists who use photography to document their work,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re doing work that is hopefully going to benefit conservation and they need photographers, or they, themselves, will document their own work … to put it into a format that is easier for people to comprehend. Hopefully, I\u2019ll get involved in some research projects \u2013 maybe over the summers \u2013 that will allow me to do things like that\u2026. But, I\u2019ll see what calls me more in the years to come and make a decision in a few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gertsman posts his photos on his website and social media accounts, and some have won contests. Most recently, three of his photos were recognized by the Audubon Photography Awards, winning the youth category prize and honourable mentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great way to show more people your work, show them the beauty of nature,\u201d said Gertsman. \u201cSome of my photos have been featured, in the past, in magazines and in web articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at a point now in the world where, if we don\u2019t change something big \u2026 we\u2019re going to be heading into some dark times. The environment is at a very unstable point right now. Our actions in the next little while are going to have a big impact on whether there\u2019s going to be nature and a natural environment to live in, in the years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything we have as people comes from nature,\u201d he continued. \u201cWithout nature, we can\u2019t survive. But, it can be hard for people to understand that. It\u2019s not a direct link. If you cut down a tree, it\u2019s not going to have an impact on most people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, on a larger scale, it matters. \u201cSo,\u201d he said, \u201cwhat I\u2019m trying to do is, by photographing the natural world in the most beautiful way I possibly can and showing it to as many people I possibly can, I\u2019m trying to educate the world the best I can on how incredible the environment is and how worth protecting it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
The talons of a wild bald eagle, photographed on the southwest coast of British Columbia. \u201cIt was sitting near a popular walking trail, so perhaps it was used to attention from its human admirers,\u201d said Liron Gertsman. (photo by Liron Gertsman)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This past spring, Gertsman was in Israel, one of the most amazing places in the world for birdwatching, as \u201call the birds migrating from Africa to Europe pass through in Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There are many ways people can help promote the environment, he added. \u201cYou can help me spread my message \u2013 tell your friends, share my website, follow me on social media, my Instagram. I post, almost every day, my latest pictures on Instagram. Hopefully, through that, I\u2019ll be able to reach more people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s increasingly difficult to motivate people to do things individually, but individual action can have wide affect. When a government adds a regulation, it has an impact and, when regulations are taken away, that too has a huge impact. So, in the way we think about our political leaders, there\u2019s something we can do as a nation there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut also, just on an individual scale, cutting down on driving, not using plastic straws … little things, like carpooling, things you do every day can make a big difference. And, just spreading the message of how amazing nature is, and getting out and enjoying nature yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, visit lirongertsman.com<\/a> or @liron_gertsman_photography<\/a> on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With his photos, Liron Gertsman hopes to raise awareness of environmental issues. (photo by Liron Gertsman) Recent Vancouver high school graduate and award-winning photographer Liron Gertsman is heading to the University of British Columbia to study biology. His main passion is taking photos of nature, particularly birds, in the hope of sparking in viewers feelings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[8204,2845,8316,2747,1959],"class_list":["post-29778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-birds","tag-environment","tag-liron-gertsman","tag-photography","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}