Supermodel, author and TV host Chrissy Teigen took to social media this week to laud the skills of an Israeli photographer.
On Tuesday, Teigen posted three photos of herself on Instagram that photographer Tal Abudi shot recently.
“It’s been such a long time since I had a shoot just to shoot,” Teigen wrote to her 23.4 million followers. “Like 12 years. But I saw some of @tal_abudi’s incredible photos of some of my friends (@ninaagdal!) and I had to meet him! And it was a wonderful, easy, beautiful day with some of the greatest people ever.”
She also shared one of the three black and white glamour shots on Twitter, writing: “please use this for my in memoriam photo.”
Abudi is based in Tel Aviv but works regularly in New York and Los Angeles, and – unusually for the world of high fashion – is a religiously observant Jew. He has said in interviews that he will only photograph models who are dressed in a modest way – as Teigen was in the images.
“I don’t see myself as some kind of genius, I just know that God blessed me with photography skills,” Abudi wrote on Instagram more than a year ago. “My main goal in ‘publicity’ is that I am able to empower the issue of modesty. From the moment I realized that this is the profession I have chosen for myself, I felt that maybe I could make a difference, and change a certain perception.”
“I truly think that a woman is more beautiful when she’s wearing modest clothes,” he wrote. “When I see photos of the models I photograph in international agencies, and their head shots and portfolios are all in modest clothing, it shows me that when the photo is strong, there is no need for revealing clothing.”
Teigen worked with two other Israelis on the photo shoot: Shalev Lavan, who did the styling, and Shay Ziv, who did Teigen’s hair.
And they’re far from the only Israelis that Teigen enjoys working with. She wrote her two cookbooks – Cravings and Cravings: Hungry for More – with cookbook author Adeena Sussman, who lives in Tel Aviv.