My grandfather, Benjamin Gomes Casseres, started to photograph in Cuba before 1920, using a classic Graflex camera, and continued to photograph when the family returned to Curaçao, in 1929, until his death in 1955. Recently I scanned his photos, planning to create a book of his photography.
My father, Frank Mendes Chumaceiro, was a pioneer cinematographer in Curaçao, from the early nineteen fifties, before the age of television - creating, together with my mother, a number of mostly documentary films on Curaçao, its music, nature, folklore, Jewish heritage and on the visits of the former Dutch queen Juliana, and later Princess Beatrix, Holland's present queen.
My mother, Stella (Tita) Mendes Chumaceiro, an artist in her own right, made color slides of Curaçao. A series of stamps of the Netherlands Antilles bears her photos of flowers.
My son, Itamar Mendes-Flohr is a young professional cinematographer and stills photographer in Israel. The film "Don Quixote in Jerusalem", of which he is the cinematographer, won international acclaim in the short film category (Berlinale Film Festival, among others) and I hope to be able to include it on this site as a part of "Blocked Landscapes", my online art exhibit on the wall between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
My daughter, Inbal Mendes-Flohr, is an artist and art teacher in Israel. Shown here are images of her large (2x3m) paintings in fluorescent acrylic on canvas (to be viewed in ultra violet light) from her exhibit "Beyond the Purple Light", in 2004 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem.