Photograph by David Rubinger
The Digital Journalist

 
 
 
 
 
June 10, 1967 -
Israeli paratroopers
reach the Western Wall.
 

David Rubinger talks about
his most famous picture.


 
 
 
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Chance. An element that is really quite planned. It is the culmination of patience, hard work and constant trial and error. Then, at a certain moment, something is achieved, which seems to be a momentary improvisation, but is really the final product of trying and trying again.

So it is in the photo Rubinger considers his "Signature" - the three paratroopers at the Wall. The Wall had been taken twenty minutes before. Shots were still being fired. Soldiers cried and so did Rubinger. He claims he was lying on the ground, photographing upwards, because he was scared. I refuse to believe that. Fear has not stopped him from running under fire on other occasions. He is not ashamed of the fear, but of the fact that at that historical moment he sought and found the correct angle. He had to lie down to photograph what seemed right. This photograph connects the old and the new, hope with stones that have been bled. Changing the angle might have separated the soldiers from the Wall. There is smiling and weeping, a helmet held in awe. This is the story of the war, what it did and will still do, where it came from and where it will still go. It is a moment plucked from the flight of time, but also powerful and accurate documentation of an event full of surprises - because it is a frozen moment.

- Yoram Kaniuk


 
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