“David Rubinger”, 2014, 9″ x 9″, 2B Grumbacher Pentalic Woodless Pencil on Fabriano CFM Ingres 90 gsm acid free paper

I was recently invited to teach at the FOTOfusion 2014 conference at the Palm Beach Photographic Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. As I walked into the exhibition area on the first evening I was stopped in my tracks by an incredibly moving, personal and powerful set of photographs on display, “My Eye on Israel” by David Rubinger (available as a beautiful coffee-table book and as an iBook which includes videos). I had the great pleasure of meeting David and then drawing him. The finished drawing is shown here (above) plus some documentation of the process (below).

As I walked around the exhibition of David’s photographs one in particular seemed very familiar: the photograph of the bloodied song sheet with the “Song for Peace” that assassinated Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin had just sung and was in his pocket when he was shot. David photographed it the next morning. It was that photograph that had led me to create my portrait of Rabin back in 1996.

January, 2014