MARIA: Hey, Dave! It's Maria from B&H DAVE: Hey, Maria. How are you?
MARIA: Great!
DAVE: You mind taking your shoes off? MARIA: Oh sure, of course!
MARIA: So, I heard you were hanging out here, changing some film.
DAVE: Yep MARIA: And I thought I could ask you 21 questions.
MARIA: Do you have time? DAVE: Absolutely, let's do this!
MARIA: Awesome. So, can you tell the audience what type of photographer are you?
Mostly I like street photography and travel,
but I also like to do a lot of portraiture, especially when i'm shooting film.
MARIA: And, can you tell us where are we in this beautiful space?
So, right now we're in my Brooklyn loft. It's kind of a live space combined with a photo studio.
MARIA: Cool, and what are you doing right now?
Right now, I'm loading some film into this,
this Leica that I've been testing out lately, and it's been really fun shooting on some 35mm.
MARIA: Cool! So, it's been a crazy few months.
How have you been holding up with this pandemic?
You know, I think it's been a really tough time for everybody,
but I'm holding up pretty well, all things considered
MARIA: And can you tell us what got you started in photography?
Oh man, the first time I ever fell in love with photography,
I was at summer camp, and I was in a dark room.
I remember sliding the paper into the developer and just watching the image come to life.
And I had never--I've never forgotten that moment.
MARIA: And, what's your go-to camera and lens now?
My go-to camera and lens right now is the a7R IV,
and I would say the 24 to 70, 2.8 G Master is my most-used lens.
MARIA: That's great.
MARIA: And I've noticed your style to be a very moody, like a detective movie.
How did you come to master this style?
Well, I've always been very inspired by science fiction, both in literature and in film.
So, those kind of foggy, dystopian kind of movie sets
have really made their way into my stills work.
MARIA: That's awesome. And you're a Sony Alpha Collective member, right?
DAVE: Yes. MARIA: And why is this so important to you for your career?
I think that in any creative career the thing that helps you the most is having a strong creative community.
Kind of, you know, we're all working off of each other all the time.
And having the support of a brand like Sony, that helps us keep those community bonds together
is really helpful for me as an artist.
MARIA: And, you have a pretty large following on social media.
How do you think tools like Instagram help a photographer's career?
Instagram and social media is one of the best marketing tools that we have right now for the creative industry.
I kind of consider it a living, breathing portfolio
that I get to update every single day.
And so, if people want to stay up to date on my work
or brands are looking for a certain type of style,
every day they can, you know,
automatically, I get like a little, a flyer in front of them that says "here's what I do, and here's how I do it"
MARIA: That's right. And do you have any projects you're working on right now or coming up?
The biggest project that I'm working on right now is being more of a curator of community.
And to that end, I've developed a site called allships.co.
And the idea there is to build an editorial presence that also has a boutique agency built in.
MARIA: That's really cool!
MARIA: And, if you had to choose one thing that is your favorite part of your work, what would it be?
DAVE: Hm, one thing that's been my favorite part of my work...
Hm...
I think my favorite thing about being a photographer
is that my camera is like a master key that can unlock any door.
So, anybody who needs any sort of content,
which is most everybody these days because of digital media and social media,
I can kind of get access to areas that I would never get before.
And that's really a compelling reason to be a creative artist.
MARIA: Cool
MARIA: And, what are some tips for somebody looking to perfect their style
to stand out in front of others like you have.
I think the best advice I could give to anybody trying to stand out in a very saturated creative market
is to be unequivocally yourself because the one thing nobody else can do,
and it's something that cannot be faked.
So, if you just really lean into who you are as a person,
it'll take you further than anything else in your career.
MARIA: Right
Favorite spot in New York City to photograph.
Ooh that's a--New York City is a photographer's playground, so it's a really tough question to answer.
But I would say for views, my favorite is the top of the Empire State Building
because you get this beautiful 360 with no glass,
and you get these really incredible kind of like honeycomb visions of New York at night.
But for street photography, I like the older areas of New York, like the Lower East Side, Chinatown
and those kind of grittier places that still have that kind of nostalgic feel to them.
MARIA: Yeah! Favorite time of day to shoot?
My favorite time of day to shoot is definitely golden hour into night.
I think that once the kind of neons and LEDs
and all these different flashing lights come on in New York,
my creativity really comes alive.
MARIA: Rain or shine.
It's always rain for me. [Maria laughs]
People always make fun of me because, you know, they'll complain about the rain, and I'm
I'm the most excited one in the room,
and nobody understands it until they see the work i make out of it.
MARIA: You've kind of already answered this, but sunset or sunrise.
I'm not much of a morning person, so I'd rather get in the zone at sunset, and then take that energy into the night.
MARIA: Craziest shoot you've ever done.
Wow, the craziest shoot I've ever done. That's a really tough question.
Photography has opened up a lot of the world to me, and I've had some incredible experiences.
One that comes to mind immediately is I went down with a bunch of friends
to shoot the solar eclipse in the path of totality in Nashville.
And I was--I had very high expectations for that,
but it really was exceeded.
I felt this kind of like cosmic connection to the whole world
and everyone else who was witnessing that moment.
And it was a really beautiful kind of transportive experience for me.
MARIA: Greatest memory from a shoot.
Ooh, greatest memory from a shoot.
Um, my trip to Cuba with the Alpha Collective was probably the best trip I've taken in my life.
It was just this kind of...
immersive cultural experience combined with incredible photographic potential.
And great friendships emerged from that that I still maintain to this day.
MARIA: Cool. And if you weren't a photographer, what would you be?
If I wasn't a photographer, I think I would be a writer.
I love to write. It's a bit more of an effort for me to write
than it is to take a photo, so I've tended towards the photo side.
But, at the core, I'm a storyteller, and I don't really care what medium I'm telling stories in.
I just want those stories to come to life
and for people's imagination to breathe even more life into them.
MARIA: And, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
I think the best piece of advice I've ever received is
you really like create the world around you by what energy you put out.
So it's like kind of dropping a pebble into a pond or something.
Like, your actions ripple out, and eventually they hit the shores and ripple back towards you.
So if you want to live in a world that is kind and generous and inclusive,
you need to be kind and generous and inclusive.
MARIA: Great.
MARIA: And aside from your camera, what's your favorite piece of gear?
Aside from my camera, I think my favorite piece of gear is this
vintage Leica 50mm lens that was passed from my grandfather to my father to me.
It makes me feel very generationally connected to photography.
It makes it feel like this is a craft that's kind of in my blood.
And it... to know that the light that they were seeing is coming through the same glass to me,
like gives such a depth to the work I make, and it also just looks beautiful.
MARIA: That's so cool! DAVE: Yeah
MARIA: And if there were to be a movie about your life who would play you?
I think that I would want Jim Carrey to play me
because he's kind of this guy who has this very funny physical sense of humor
and can be you know a complete comedian,
but, at the same time, he has this ability to be very serious and sentimental.
He's also a very like multi-disciplinary creative person,
and I think that that's something that I always strive to be.
MARIA: Cool. And last question, who should we interview next?
I think you guys should interview my friend Oveck.
MARIA: Oh, okay!
Alright, we'll call him up and see if he wants to do it.
DAVE: Alright!
MARIA:Thank you so much for answering all my questions!
I'll let you get back to it.
DAVE: Thanks for stopping by! MARIA: Alrighty