As a photographer, Norm Levin wants to capture people’s best days of their lives. Through his company, Natural Portraits and Events, the San Rafael resident has done just that for hundreds of families in Marin and the greater Bay Area — commemorating engagements and documenting weddings, quinceañeras, birthdays and other special events.
But Levin, a longtime member of Congregation Rodef Sholom, has also been a voice for Marin’s Jewish community, capturing bar and bat mitzvahs at Rodef Sholom and beyond, and other important moments in the Jewish tradition like upsherin, the first haircut for a boy, Shavuot, a major Jewish holiday, and Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
“When I’m doing photography, I’m the witness of record. I’m the person who documents the events and who captures their spirit. We had a rabbi once, Michael Lezak, and he said, ‘Norm, you’re doing holy work.’ And I just took that to heart,” said Levin, who has photographed other religious events like Catholic weddings in cathedrals and a First Communion.
Dozens of his images over the years can be seen in “Celebrating Jewish Life in Marin,” a photo exhibit running through Thursday at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center at 200 N. San Pedro Road in San Rafael. The show is open during the community center’s regular hours.
The exhibit is an updated version of a similar show that ran in 2011, which was created with the help of Novato’s Joanne Greene, who was then working as the director of the Taube Center for Jewish Peoplehood at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center.
Together, they imagined the concept of documenting the greater Jewish community in Marin.
Some of the new images in the show include the opening of the new synagogue at Rodef Sholom earlier this year.
“I was very grateful that the center sought to put them back up,” said Levin, who credits Rabbi Alyson Solomon for its new showing. “The people in the photographs are still doing the same things as their predecessors. The activities, celebrations and traditions are timeless.”
Looking back on this body of work, he’s especially touched by the ones where people show the “most exuberance,” as well as those that depict the “interaction between young and old, between two generations of people who are really feeling their spirituality.”
“My tagline is ‘Photography with spirit,’” said Levin, who has been an avid photographer for most of his life. “It’s a show of the community, for the community. I hope people see themselves and their friends in it, and they’ll see that it’s a very vibrant community and one that has a lot of staying power. Marin is known for being laidback and being not too passionate. I found it to be quite the other way. The people here can be very passionate and very spiritual. And I’m trying to capture those moments and have them remember them.”
Levin, who grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in Los Angeles, was exposed to the arts at a young age. His mom was a painter and his dad was a chemist in a Hollywood film lab. He first learned his craft while dabbling in darkrooms before studying fine art photography at the University of California at Los Angeles.
As he kept photographing more — from family portraits to sporting events — he began to see his style take shape.
“Photographing spirit is really what motivates all of it,” said Levin, who photographed distanced family portraits to fundraise for local charities during the pandemic. “As I focused more and more on spiritual events, I started to see how the best images for those were people expressing their own beliefs and spirituality. I captured their feelings as my style and framed it, if you will.”
And through this exhibit, he wanted to proudly showcase the community he’s been a part of for all these years.
“In this exhibit, I’m saying, ‘Hey, this is who we are. This is how we celebrate. These are our people,'” he said.
