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Benowitz Presents Art Photo to Berenbaum

BY VIVIEN SPITZ

Among H.Allen Benowitz's several firsts in his reporting career was the first multipoint videoconference with live captioning.  His legal videography and videoconferencing provided a segue to a new career. Balancing his two day jobs with his new vocation, Allen now adds another first as a recognized and honored photographer. This recognition includes a judges' award at the University of Miami Lowe Art Museum's Beaux Arts Festival; receiving honorable mention in the international Kodak Contest; and an award in black-and-white photography of landscapes, wildlife, people, and adventure travel have appeared in numerous publications.

Allen's crowning achievement, leapfrogging him into national recognition, played out on July 17 at Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation-sponsored Holocaust Remembrance Project annual awards dinner at Wyndham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Claudia Hoffman of the Holland & Knight law firm had viewed Allen's photography at his exhibit and was impressed with his photos.  At Claudia's behest, Angela Ruth director of Holland & Knight, extended an invitation to Allen to personally present an award of his "Behind the Wall" as a gift to the keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, former president of the U.S. Holocaust Museum Research Institute and consultant to director Steve Spielberg's Survivors of the SHOAH Visual History Foundation.

The Hon. William Sessions, former director of the FBI introduced Allen to the large audience and, after detailing Allen's professional accomplishments, segued into his photography and asked for a narration of the origin of the photograph.  Upon Allen's presentation of Dr. Berenbaum, expressing appreciation for the honor of having one of his photographs singled out as a gift, Allen described his photograph.

"This unique multiple exposure, with extraordinary results, appears a contrast in locations.  The young ghetto victim and, as may be perceived, his ghost mother and sister, were photographically captured from a wall display at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, and the superimposed background and passageway was shot in Safed, a mystic artist colony village north of Haifa on the Mediterranean.  The railway tracks down the center conjure up thoughts of boxcars hauling European Jews to concentration camps when, in fact, the village was built of stone, by hand, and the tracks transported the stones in the small rail cars.  While mindful of the Holocaust, the irony of this photograph is that it was created in Israel in 1991 while on a mission with the Greater Miami Jewish Federation.

"The picture reflects trademark of my photography: depth and texture, as demonstrated by the tunnel effect of the passageway and stone wall construction."

After Allen made his presentation, Dr. Berenbaum thanked Allen by saying he was sincerely touched and that this gift would find a very special place in his home.

Congratulations to Allen Benowitz on national recognition of his new career in photography.

Visit Allen's Web site at www.H-AllenArt.com to view more art photography.