In 2016 I was contacted by JEM (Jewish Educational Media) to ask if they could hire me as a photographer to take some pictures for an upcoming book. The book was a compilation of first-hand stories of encounters with the Rebbe, to be called “My Story.”
The stories to appear in the book were based on live interviews, however they wanted to do a story from Rabbi Levi Bukiet in Chicago, and they had been unable to get together to do the video interview.
Levi Bukiet was a friend of mine, and it sounded like a worthwhile project, so of course I agreed. Since they had already interviewed him by phone to get his story, what they really needed were just some pictures of him that looked like they were taken during an interview, one of which would appear with his story.
So on the day that Levi was going to come over for the photo shoot, I arranged a section of our library, moved a plant into the corner by the bookcase, and set up my lighting.
Since Levi was not a professional model, I suggested that he should just tell me his story and let me shoot as he spoke. My feeling was that this would give the most natural appearance of photos taken during an interview.
Although I expected that he would tell me the story he had told JEM, the amazing story he chose to tell me was one that he would have liked to have published but was not the story that JEM had chosen to publish.
A few of the photos from the photo session are below, as well as the officially written up story that Rabbi Buckiet told me that day. As far as I know the story was not published, mainly because it was second hand, as told to him by somebody else. It is, nonetheless an amazing story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
When I sent the images to JEM, they asked me what they owed me, and I told them that I was glad to contribute these images and thus somehow participate in this valuable book. When the book came out, I was surprised to find that they had actually acknowledged me as assisting them, something I did not expect, but definitely appreciate.
