100 YEARS OF RED SUN
BY ORLI PEREL NIR
Orli Perel Nir was born in 1977, lives and works in Israel. He has a Bachelor degree (B.E.Des) in photography with honors and excellence by Wizo Design Academy, Haifa, Israel. With several exhibitions and awards, Orli Nir works in private and public collections in New York, Poland, Israel, Russia & Romania.
synopsis
100 Years of Red Sun is a series of portraits of young cadets from military academies in Eastern Europe, where strict military education from an early age still takes place and being a part of a the national identity after long centuries of tradition. For an outside viewer this world might seems far and strange, but altogether a unique remnant of a glorious era, a current hallmark of a distinctive heritage throughout history; a world that retained its own rules and beliefs despite the enormous changes throughout time. Young boys are being trained to be senior officers in the army while the choice of military life is being made from a very young age. The thin line between childhood and manhood in the pictures is being crossed over and over, as well as dreams and disappointments. The subjects were chosen carefully and were staged like on a theatre stage; emerging from the black background behind them or being swallowed by it. Young children posing like in the old portraits of war heroes painted in the 16th and 17th centuries, the faces of the future being held back by the past.
Editor´s note
The presented project was selected from a spontaneous submission made by Orli Perel Nir. Our aim is to disseminate and bring to light telling work of emergent or young photographers.