BIOGRAPHY

Award winning photojournalist documentary travel photographer Rafael Ben Ari has been at the forefront of photography taken his story telling worldwide.Rafael is an international independent content creator master photographer and filmmaker, specializing in photojournalism and travel photography. He is known for his war conflict images and travel photography from around the world. In 2019 he was named one of the top 10 Best Photographers in the world by Pouted Magazine.

His work appears in magazines, books, newspapers and online media daily worldwide. Rafael has exhibited his visual work in Israel, Australia, New Zealand, France, Mexico and Italy.
Rafael Ben-Ari’s mission is “To photograph the mysteries of life on the land, in the sky and underwater in a driven passion to find the connection between reality and imagination”. He believes that: “There is no place that is too far…” and that “The biggest fear is fear itself.”

Rafael was introspective as a child, and at school his teachers had great difficulty in finding his forte, although he gave full evidence of acute visual awareness. Since the age of four he expressed himself and described the surrounding world by drawing with a variety of art supplies. Pencil, pen, charcoal, paints, spray or a brush over any kind of surface. Rafael was always passionate to learn about and create all kinds of visual arts such as architecture, sculpture, painting, photography and film-making.

His first photographs were taken in fall of 1988 (age 17) after he had a near-death experience (NDE) with out-of-body experience (OBE) lying in coma for couple of days. A few weeks later, his doctors informed Rafael that he was plagued with what was thought to be a brain tumor. At the time they claimed that there was nothing more they could do and that he has only one month to live. In his sorrow at hospital Rafael borrowed an old Konica Auto S2 (35mm film Camera) from his father and started to document the first day of the rest of his life. Against all odds, Rafael’s life was saved by divine intervention during a long complicated surgery. He was reborn eventually after seven months of social isolation from the rest of the world – watching other patients come and go from the ward on their feet or in a plastic bag.

This life experience led Rafael to express himself by using cameras as tools to grab the passing moments in life he almost lost. With strong determination he managed to recover physically and mentally. Rafael returned to school to finish the final academic year and although he was asked to repeat it, he decided to learn everything he missed in seven months away and graduated in outstanding achievements with the rest of his year class. He then (age 18) bought his first professional camera gear, traveled to East Africa and climbed on Mount Kenya to find out that his life had only just begun.

Rafael’s professional career started (age 19) at the time Saddam Hussein and his armed forces invaded to Kuwait in 1990 when he served in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) during the Gulf War as a Military Photographer.

When he finished his Israeli military service Rafael started an extensive travel around the world while gaining higher education knowledge and skills in photography, history, international relationship, architecture, geography, philosophy, theology, off road driving, diving and sailing. He has studied photojournalism in the New York Institute of Photography (NYIP) in New York USA and later he was study in the most prestigious art school in Israel the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. He was accepted to study both Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) and Bachelor of Fine Arts ( B.F.A) and eventually chose to major in Fine Arts photography as it was his real passion.

Over the years he has crossed six continents, lived in some of the world’s major cities and has immersed himself in many manners of work and cultures. His ability to speak more than just his native language (Hebrew) has helped him in his photography career. Rafael can speak fluent English, basic Arabic and Spanish skill that opened doors for him in many countries. His life experience, he believes, helped him to feel empathy towards his subjects and to see it through his eyes deeper and as a result his photograph’s convey viewers the reality life better.

Rafael’s over 35 years of professional photography experience makes him comfortable working with PRO digital DSLR cameras, HD and 4K Camcorders and analogue 35mm, panoramic and underwater cameras use of both available light and artificial light to capture his images depending on the weather and local light conditions.

His passion for photography lead him to experience in almost all fields of photography. From Street to Landscape, Nature to Wildlife, Aerial to Underwater, from Photojournalism (News and War) to Commercial photography. This led Rafael today to become an independent digital nomad content creator who chooses his topics and photo assignments independently and approaches them in his own unique way. Among his other interests, Rafael teaches individuals and small group on photography and gives public lecturing in his spare time.

Rafael’s photography work is well recognized and represented by the leading photo agencies in the world and his images appear in a large number of TV programs, book publications, magazines, newspapers and websites all over the world. To name a few: The National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet and The New York Times and many more.

Currently Rafael focus on photo and filming assignments primarily documenting the cultures, landscapes, peoples, nature and wildlife in the Oceania region of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Today, Rafael constantly works on new photo assignments around the world and he is a full time freelance photographer and cameraman based in Australia.