Marko Dashev Portrait Photography

Yuri Foreman, Photographed Summer 2023, Brooklyn NY
World Champion Boxer, Rabbi, Vegan, and a great guy to know.

I met Yuri some 15 years ago in Brooklyn, at Rabbi DovBer Pinson’s shul in the Gowanus, the Iyyun Center.

At the time, in addition to a busy boxing match schedule, Yuri was studying and later passed his exams to become and ordained orthodox Rabbi.

Yuri is an expression of divine unity, combining his Art and Craft, with hard earned knowledge of Halachah and living a Jewish life, bringing holiness to places that only he can.
A real Maccabi! B”H

Hope to see you!!
This coming Wednesday,
at my show’s official opening night!
@ the Aventura, JCC.

Please come and join me for an evening at the MARJCC in Aventura FL. This coming Wednesday, May 17th at 7pm. My photography exhibit is up for viewing there. I will give a talk and tour the exhibit with you.

Today, 4.25.2023, starts the soft opening of my photography exhibit.

If you haven't visited the PNIMI exhibit yet, then treat yourself for a special night/day out!

Would love to hear your input on the show.

Location:
MARJCC
18900 NE 25th Ave.
Miami FL 33180

Usual hours are 6am-10pm.

BackStoryTime:
Let me take you back to December 24, 2017. A date in the not so distant past. But don’t think it’s a short leap back. Time is relative, and moves differently for us all.
Tonight, I’d like to talk about Nissim Baruch Black.

Many people ask how or why I get in touch with someone when I want to take their portrait. It’s never the same answer twice.
Nissim Black popped up on my radar in 2016. I found him intriguing. Both from his roots and where he went with it.
Later after interacting with him at the portrait session, I understood that I experienced a much more subtle and refined moment during the rise of this great Jewish personality.

Leading up to our portrait session, I never interacted directly with Nissim. Instead, Eli Goldsmith was our liaison. He helped me set the whole thing up. Nissim would be performing at a theatre in Brooklyn during the days of Chanukah, alongside Zusha and others. I arrived at the venue and set up my shots while Nissim was taking care of his sound check. The first set that I put up was at the side stairs of the main stage. I felt like there would be an interesting subtext in that Nissim would be seated on stairs. A place of ascent.
Eli made the introductions as Nissim came off stage. Nissim seemed very quiet and reserved, as if his presence at a performance was causing him a mix of grief, hesitation, and deep contemplation. It took me off guard. I expected exuberance, excitement, some sort of pre-performance energy. I’ve been around many dozens of rap stars, hung out in the recording studio with P Diddy and the like. They’re always hype hype hype.
And here, at this theatre in Brooklyn, Nissim is a man at an intersection. A place where piety, modesty, self reflection, and even apprehension dominated the air.
Quietly, not brooding.
So, what was really at hand?
Nissim was working out how to be an artist in the Jewish world, to be very careful that what he puts out into the world both in art and in persona would be for the sake of heaven and positivity. (See comments for continuation)

Rudy “Israel” Rochman
Tireless advocate for Israel and Jews worldwide.
Currently filming “We Were Never Lost,” which documents far flung and nearly unknown Jewish communities around the world.
Imprisoned in Nigeria last year whilst filming the Igbo community.

Photographed 2022, Miami Beach

Exhibit opening tonight. Mandel JCC in palm beach gardens, on Hood rd.
I’ll be there giving a talk!
Hope to see you

Show opens tomorrow evening in Palm Beach Gardens! Hope to see you there!!

This Wednesday evening at the Mandel JCC in Palm Beach Gardens, I will be opening the second showing of “Pnimi”, with a reception and a tour, starting at 7pm.

Yossi Green, photographed Summer 2021, Brooklyn, NY.
Jewish Songwriter beyond compare. Looking forward to our next session.

Singer Shlomo Simcha Sufrin, photographed Summer 2021, Brooklyn, NY. Easily one of the most powerful voices I’ve yet encountered. This is my second photo shoot with Shlomo Simcha. From the first moment of our first shoot, I felt like we were old friends. Seriously.

Once upon a private concert, ie photo shoot with the singularly talented Benny Friedman photographed Summer 2021, Brooklyn NY

The one and only Lipa Schneltzer. Singer, Painter, Multimedia sensation. Photographed 2021, Summer, Airmont, NY.
I’m always very excited when I get the call to go and shoot Lipa, mostly because I never know what to expect. A true artist in every sense of the word.

Tonight’s the big night!! Hope to see you there! Miami Beach JCC 7:30-9pm. Link in bio to help offset print costs

This Wednesday night 7:30pm at the JCC Miami Beach, is the debut of my photography exhibit, “PNIMI”
Hoping to see you there!

Hello Everyone!!
My debut Show is coming up at the JCC Miami Beach FL, March 2nd, 2022.
Inviting you to take part. Please read the pic. Enter my gofundme page, and be part of something awesome and timeless.

https://gofund.me/ffc32ff1

Thank you,
Marko

Rabbi Simcha Backman, photographed 2015, CT Rabbi Backman, in the early 2000s created “askmoses.com”, a concept well before its time, and quickly and extensively used for several years, as a resource for Jews and non-Jews alike to ask questions about judaism in all of its aspects. The website once boasted the fact that it was the largest employer of Rabbis and Rabinnical students in the whole world. By 2009, askmoses.com had fielded its 1 millionth question. I put it to you, the viewer, to name another resource in history that provided answers to Jewish questions on such a scale. Nowadays there’s a placeholder webpage where this behemoth of shailas and tshuvos once operated at full steam. I think it needs to come back to its former self for the new generation that hasn’t accessed this repository of Jewish knowledge.

Rabbi Shalom Arush, photographed October 2021, Miami FL.

“There is no greater gift than ahavas Yisrael.”

Rabbi Shalom Arush, photographed October 2021. FL.
“There is a good reason why Chanukah is tied to both light, and education. (The Hebrew root of “Chanukah” is חנכ - as in chinuch - education). True education only comes through light. In education, you don’t try to chase away the darkness – rather, you create light, and the darkness goes away on its own. “
(From: The Holiday of Education by Rabbi Shalom Arush)

Rabbi Shalom Arush, photographed October 2021 “The Al Hanissim prayer that we pray during the entire eight days of Chanuka thanks Hashem for the magnificent miracle He did for us during the time of the Maccabees. But people forget that miracles are with us every single day, for in our daily Modim prayer, we explicitly say, “We thank You for all Your miracles…the Good, Whose mercy has not ended.” A person who thanks Hashem for the miracles achieves "the Good, Whose mercy has not ended." He merits Hashem's endless mercy and sees more and more miracles all year long.”

(from: Miracles Year-Round,
Rabbi Shalom Arush 11/26/2021)

Get Ready, two more posts coming of Rabbi Shalom Arush after this one, today, stay tuned.
Rabbi Shalom Arush brought the light of Torah and Emuna to Florida recently. You can see from this image how happy and honored I was to take his portrait.
Thank you to all of the dear friends who helped to make it happen. Menachem S, Eli Goldsmith, Ephraim Geltman, Michael Benmele & Gila Rochel Robinson

Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky
Vice Chairman of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch,
Chabad Lubavitch
Photographed in his office at 770 Eastern Parkway, Summer 2021.
Rabbi Kotlarsky, since 1968, has served as the central authority for all of the Rebbe’s shluchim/emissaries worldwide.

Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky
Vice Chairman of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch,
Chabad Lubavitch
Photographed in his office at 770 Eastern Parkway, Summer 2021.
Rabbi Kotlarsky, since 1968, has served as the central authority for all of the Rebbe’s shluchim/emissaries worldwide.

ZUSHA, from the 2021 late summer’s session. Confession: It’s difficult if not wrong to pick favorite portrait subjects...suffice to say, these two are on the top of the list. More to come... if you haven’t dropped everything to give their songs a good long meditative listen, then you should! Like now.

Danny Finkelman, film Director, Producer. Legendary personality. Raising the bar of Jewish Film. Photographed in Crown Heights Brooklyn, end of summer 2021.
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Danny Finkelman, film Director, Producer. Legendary personality. Raising the bar of Jewish Film. Photographed in Crown Heights Brooklyn, end of summer 2021.
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Shulem Lemmer, Singer, Photographed July 2021, Toms River NJ.

ZUSHA featured in current issue of Moment Magazine photographed July 2021, Brooklyn ny. Can you hear this picture?