031 Eric Davidove – On the Art of Making Zines and Photobooks

Today, I’m joined by Eric Davidove, a street photographer from San Francisco. His work speaks to me for its comedic moments and compositions.

Follow Eric Davidove:

• Website: https://edovephotos.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edovephotos/
• Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/edavidove/

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• My website: www.fredericpaulussen.be

Timestamps of this episode with Eric Davidove

Photographers, resources, and gear mentioned in this episode:

• Sony a6000
• Street Photography Magazine
• Ted Forbes
• The Art of Photography
• Eduardo Ortiz
• Tom Bugatti
• Mike Chudley
• Leica M11
• Gary Winogrand

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Eric. Don’t forget to subscribe to be updated about upcoming episodes. Feel free to reach out via social media if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to share.

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Podcast Transcript

Frederic Paulussen (00:01)

Welcome to the Slice of Time Street Photography Podcast. A podcast in which I explore the work of different street photographers across the world, genres and visions. This exposes us of course to different ideas and ways of looking which can help us ⁓ expand our own vision or form our own vision of street photography. So welcome to the Slice of Time Street Photography Podcast and today I’m joined by Eric Davidoff.

heard earlier that I’m mispronouncing it possibly. So today I’m joined by Eric Davidoff, a street photographer now based in San Francisco and his work spoke to me because it has all these ⁓ comedic moments and compositions. So hey Eric, could you perhaps introduce yourself?

Eric Davidove (00:29)

Ha ha ha ha.

Hi, Frederic First, let me say how much I appreciate you inviting me to your podcast. I’ve listened to several of your episodes and it’s a great honor to be here. So thank you. Well, ⁓

Frederic Paulussen (00:58)

⁓ thank you. My pleasure.

Eric Davidove (01:03)

Where do I begin? I guess I can start with my age, because it’s something I’m starting to think about more these days. I’m turning 68 in two months. I have two adult children. Both of them are boys, well, men. I live with an amazing woman. I teach yoga. I spend a lot of time walking and taking care of other people’s dogs.

I have lived in the San Francisco Bay area since 2010 and I started my life journey in Hollywood, California, which is where I was born. But I’ve moved around. Yeah, I like saying that. was born in a hospital on Sunset Boulevard of all places. But after I got my bachelor’s degree, I moved around a lot. I actually went to Washington, D.C., got a master’s and believe it

Frederic Paulussen (01:44)

Okay.

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (01:59)

or

not I went to Florida. I got a doctoral degree. I lived in London for six years. ⁓ So I moved around quite a bit. But I came to the San Francisco Bay Area in ⁓ 2010.

And then in early of 2016 is when I started taking, I guess what I would call now street photography or street photos. And then I retired in 2017, late 2017. So why did I start taking street photos? Well, I was experiencing some very challenging life situations. And then I decided I just needed to get out of the house. I needed to do something creative

It’s something I’ve done my whole life. I tried to be involved in creative pursuits and I need to find a way to get a distraction off of my problems. So I had recently purchased a new camera, not my first camera, but a new camera. And I thought, you know, why not go out and use it and get out the house and see what happens. So I started going to the city, San Francisco, and taking photos and just walking around. And about that same time,

I stumbled upon a Facebook group for street photographers in the San Francisco Bay area. And I also learned about a street photography festival in San Francisco, which is no longer happening, unfortunately. But that made me very excited and it motivated me to really go for it. I had a few good years and I was seeing a lot of improvement and growth in my work.

I was building a nice community of fellow street photographers and then COVID hit. And it really ⁓ threw everything into ⁓ an upside down world as I’m sure it did to you as well. And it was frustrating because I couldn’t go to the city. I couldn’t take street photos. And I had a few years where…

⁓ I had time to reflect and study and get photo books and that kind of thing. Since COVID, I still go to the city, but it’s not the same.

It’s getting better, but it’s just not the same. A lot of companies moved their employees out, so there’s not as much foot traffic, especially during the weekdays. I was able in the pre-COVID days to go to the city during a weekday, and it would be a great time to go shoot photos, but not any longer, at least in my experience. So I go on the weekends. Maybe I try to go at least once a week.

And ⁓ I would say that it is improving slowly but surely, but thankfully we also have a handful of really nice events and festivals that happen in the city, which are also very good for street photography and documentary photography. So.

I discovered a flea market near my house that has been open since 1965. And I learned that the flea market has an uncertain future because the landowners, the new landowners are thinking of replacing it or ⁓ maybe changing it dramatically so they can develop it into something else, ⁓ more housing, more retail.

restaurants, things of this nature. So I decided because it’s so close to my house and because the city

⁓ isn’t what it used to be, I needed to find a different place to go take photos that wouldn’t consume my whole day, something that would require less time. So in ⁓ January of last year, I started going to the flea market every weekend, and I just produced my very first book in February this year, which includes photos from that project. And I’m very happy I did that. It was a great learning experience, which if you want, we can talk about that further. ⁓

Frederic Paulussen (06:11)

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (06:12)

I’m not sure where I go from here other than I just continue taking street photos with no specific agenda Just taking the photos I like and then just see what bubbles up. So that’s me in a nutshell

Frederic Paulussen (06:27)

Yeah, and I think the last thing you said is like, for example, I was struggling for projects to think, know, like, what projects should I take on and everything. I think it’s the last thing you just said is interesting in that regards because it’s…

the projects kind of come up, like you have to look at your work and just go out and do street photography and after a while you see like, hey, this might be an interesting subject or this might be something to work on. So that’s very cool.

So already great advice and yeah, we’ll get into the bookmaking definitely first I want to ask because you you mentioned at the start of your story that you had like a camera laying around And then you decided to start doing street photography So then why did you have the camera already was because you already because of the travels maybe that you you? Did some photography or yeah?

Eric Davidove (07:19)

Yeah, so I bought a really interesting camera about maybe a few months before I started taking street photos. It was a camera that ⁓ did not have a viewfinder. Everything had to be shot from behind like a phone. It was a very small camera. Sony made it. I think it was called an ⁓ A6000 digital camera.

Frederic Paulussen (07:37)

Like I like on the screen. Yeah, okay

Eric Davidove (07:45)

and it had a flip screen that you can turn completely around so can do selfies. I thought, this might be fun. And when I go on vacation or if I’m with my girlfriend and we’re out doing stuff, it’s better than a phone and it was small enough I can put it in my pocket. So a couple of months after I owned it, I’ll try to make the story somewhat short. We went for a hike and I, as typical man, I kept…

thinking that ⁓ I was on the right trail, although my girlfriend would say, think we need to turn around. was like, no, no, no, this is a loop, this is a loop. Well, it wasn’t a loop and I ended up on the other side of the mountain. It was getting late.

and we would not have made it back to the car in time. It would have been too dark, so I had to hitch a ride and pay this guy like 50 bucks to drive me back to my car. And he did, and then when I got out of his car and he took off, I realized I forgot my camera in his car. It was a brand new camera. I only had it like a month or two. So when I got home, I was like, ⁓ I can’t believe I left my camera. So I said, well, the best thing

Frederic Paulussen (08:46)

⁓ no, okay.

Eric Davidove (08:57)

is to go out and buy another one and don’t even think about it. But I’m gonna get a better one. So that’s how I ended up with the camera.

Frederic Paulussen (09:03)

That’s great, yeah, that’s a weird coincidence. And then from there on you started doing street photography or… Okay.

Eric Davidove (09:07)

Yeah, I did, yeah. I didn’t know

what it was. ⁓ I didn’t know what street photography was at the time. As I said, I just needed to get out of the house. I like photography. I’ve always liked photography, but like many people, I think that you’ve spoken to on your podcast. ⁓

if they start with photography, they don’t necessarily start right away with street photography. I was doing mostly ⁓ vacations and landscapes. But I always liked playing with photography and I liked the idea of using the camera. But because I was going out to the city, of course I’m looking at the people. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to San Francisco or know much about it, but it’s an interesting collection of people.

And I couldn’t help but take pictures of people because you see so many random, interesting, funny, surreal moments that it’s just hard to resist. And so I just felt like I just need to take that picture. And that’s really how I got into it.

Frederic Paulussen (10:11)

Yeah, that’s cool. Okay, that’s funny. Yeah, people watching is a big part of it.

And then, yeah, you wanted to get out the house and then, yeah, naturally you get into street photography and then from there on, were able to give it like a name, like call it street photography, or how long did that take you to?

Eric Davidove (10:28)

Yeah, it was because of that Facebook group that I discovered ⁓ what street photography was and I started getting more more interested in the genre and looking at the photos that people were taking in the group that they were sharing and then looking at ⁓

the websites at different festivals, because I was learning more about festivals and seeing which photos were being selected, which photos were winning. then there was a, at that time, the Street Photography Magazine was a very popular publication for street photography. So I was looking at that and just starting to really get my head around what, wow, I didn’t even know it was that a thing ⁓ or that it was even happening where I lived.

And it just really resonated with me. just made sense to me. ⁓ And I this is something I really want to do. I can’t explain it. It’s like, I know a lot of other people who have the same experience. It just grabs you and then it almost becomes an addiction. You just get obsessed with it, I think. ⁓ it just, maybe because, I know a lot of people talk about street photography as a…

as something like you go out hunting or you go out fishing or, you know, and maybe it’s the gaming aspect of it that is so fascinating to me is that how this thing that you can carry around that’s designed to freeze a split second moment.

Frederic Paulussen (12:04)

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (12:04)

can grab something in reality that most people don’t even see, but because you grabbed it, it’s now there forever to enjoy and study. And that just appeals to me, being part of that process.

Frederic Paulussen (12:17)

Yeah,

no, yeah, correct. And it’s, as you said, it’s kind of like a game here because the one moment you succeed and you can go to a next level or you can go to someplace else and it’s like collecting all these, well, like in a game like gems or whatever game tells you to ⁓ collect. So yeah, that’s a funny way to look at it. And so you don’t really have a specific reason why you do street photography. It’s more like, as you said, like an addiction or…

Eric Davidove (12:49)

Well, I think there are lots of reasons why I still do it today because, you know, as you know, street photography is very hard. I can go out and I can walk five or seven miles. I can be out for several hours and come home with ⁓ nothing. So you have to really love it to want to punish yourself like this. ⁓

Frederic Paulussen (12:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (13:18)

So I like it for a lot of reasons. I like it because it’s creative, it’s hard. I like it because it’s hard and challenging. It gets me out of the house. ⁓

I get exercise, I observe life. So I get out of my head, if you will, and I observe life around me. It helps me calm down. It puts my life in context. gives me perspective. It’s almost like a therapy session. And I come home and I just feel good. Even if I don’t get a good photo, I still feel good. I feel good about what I did that day.

I’ll come home even if I have shitty photos I’ll come home and I’ll look at my photos and I’ll I like the reflective exercise after a day of shooting where I look at my photos and I ask myself why did I take it what was it in that moment that got my attention because I’m learning about myself too and so it’s it’s you know I’m retired as I told you so when you retire things slow down and you don’t have

work challenges. You don’t have the discussions and the stimulation and the learning and growth that you would, you know, that you don’t have necessarily when you retire. So it gives me that as well. It feeds my desire to want to learn and grow and develop and be productive, I think.

Frederic Paulussen (14:42)

Mm.

makes total sense yeah and so you mentioned reviewing your own photos and is it because I think everyone looks at their photos and kind of tries to recreate the moment for themselves maybe but is it really like a conversation with yourself that you you look at your photos and are like why did I take this photo I don’t show what other questions you ask yourself what could I could have I could I have done better or whatever ⁓

So is it really like a conscious conversation or contemplation with yourself?

Eric Davidove (15:30)

It is, and I think it’s important to do that because it helps for me anyways. It helps me learn. Because if I’m not reflecting, then I’m not going to really understand why I’m doing what I’m doing and how I can do it differently and maybe even better. So I think it’s important to take that moment.

and reflect and look at your photos. It’s very ⁓ tempting to come home and just delete all the ones you don’t like, but I save them and I go back and look at them again and again and again because sometimes I just celebrate the fact that I noticed something even if the photograph is bad.

it’s training my eye. So I’m celebrating the fact that I noticed something because if I’m not noticing something, I can get the photograph technically right. But if it’s not the right scene or moment, then what’s the point? So I’m really reflecting. So I’m.

if you will, further training myself when I’m out there to spot and observe and notice things. I can always work on the technical aspects later, but I really want to get my eyes sharp ⁓ and build my intuition and my instincts. So that’s, I think, something you can do if you’re more reflective.

Frederic Paulussen (16:59)

That makes a lot of sense. that’s, ⁓ to me it’s, I’m often torn between am I overthinking this or am I not thinking enough? So for example, I will also sometimes because I do photography also as a full-time job, I sometimes, you know, review my own shoots, of course, but sometimes it feels like you’re just overthinking it and you’re looking for flaws or you’re looking for, and of course often there’s things.

well with me at least that keep coming back you know like i really have to start addressing this ⁓ so it’s to me it’s good to hear that that you’re someone who goes into the into the review reviewing well i’m falling over my words reviewing ⁓ very consciously as well because yeah sometimes i think like street photography has to be felt but at same time yeah you you you also have to think about it sometimes

⁓ So yeah, that’s very, at least for me, very, very good to hear already. ⁓ And so you mentioned ⁓ that you started doing street photography because you wanted to get out of the house. I read it was because of ⁓ a longer period of unemployment. And so…

Eric Davidove (18:04)

Good.

Frederic Paulussen (18:18)

Of course, I don’t think ⁓ street photography helps you to a job immediately because I think there’s very little money to gain in street photography, unfortunately, or at least not a sustainable income. So how did that still help you maybe get a job, maybe just relax or how did that play out eventually?

Eric Davidove (18:40)

Yeah, I don’t have an explicit desire ⁓ to earn a living from photography. One, because I don’t mean to sound pretentious or I’m not bragging. I don’t need the income. ⁓ I’m okay with what I have right now. But I also don’t want to turn it into a stressful job.

I want to keep it as a hobby. Now having said that, if someone wants to buy my photos or buy my book or pay me to do something, I wouldn’t turn that down necessarily. But that’s not my objective.

Frederic Paulussen (19:19)

No, no, yeah, it’s not your full-time job. Yeah, it’s just a nice extra. Yeah.

Eric Davidove (19:25)

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess it’s… You can make some money if you really…

put your head to it. I mean, you can do workshops, you can, you know, you can be a juror on festivals, you can go out and speak. There’s things you can do, but it takes commitment, it takes time, it takes effort. And I just don’t have the desire to put forth all that. And then I think I’m worried that it might spoil the fun for me, because it would, it would just turn into…

a job and I really want to keep it more as a, you know, something I enjoy and I’m doing it for me and not for anybody else. And if you like my photos and you don’t like my photos, okay, that’s fine. I’m doing this for me because ⁓ as you alluded to in your question, it is good for my mental health.

Frederic Paulussen (20:14)

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (20:28)

because it gives me an outlet. gives me ⁓ something that makes me feel good. It gives me something that’s not stressful. It gives me something that ⁓ I can identify with and that I can control completely because I’m not doing it for anybody else.

Frederic Paulussen (20:49)

Yeah, I like that. For me it’s as well I do street photography for me because I have to do my photography as a job for others obviously because it’s corporate photography. So to me it’s trying to reverse or succeeding I think in reversing that and making it fun for myself which also makes it more fun to do the actual corporate photography as well again so that’s nice. ⁓

Eric Davidove (21:05)

Yeah.

Are you doing event

photography when you say corporate photography or is it more like commercial photography for advertising?

Frederic Paulussen (21:17)

It’s

mostly headshots for companies. if it’s a CEO, if it’s like 20 people from the company who needs headshots. And of course, as you say, like events, ⁓ business events, ⁓ which I’m starting to incorporate a bit of street photography into them sometimes because it’s just more fun.

Eric Davidove (21:27)

Got it.

Frederic Paulussen (21:41)

but you can’t make unflattering photos from people at a corporate event as you might do from a street scene. But yeah, mean, it’s fun to see how those two collide. ⁓ So I wanted to come back to your mentioning doing street photography for yourself, which I think is great. But you also recently brought out a book. I want to, because that’s of course publishing your work. So…

Eric Davidove (21:49)

Right.

Frederic Paulussen (22:08)

I’m not sure if it’s not for yourself anymore, but it’s also for others to see, I think. And of course you also want to make it, or at least you want to see your money back that you invested in it maybe, not turn a huge profit. So how did that ⁓ entire process for you happen? So you had your projects finished and then you decided to make a book out of it, or was it more during the process of making the project still that you decided this might be a book?

Eric Davidove (22:35)

Yeah, and I’ll start by saying I did not make the book ⁓ to make any money back and I didn’t care if I lost money, but I’ll come back to that. So I felt like I needed to move beyond.

⁓ Just and I don’t mean to belittle it but just going out taking photos. I felt like I needed now to do something with my photos because if I’m just taking photos and putting them on a social media platform or an occasionally into a festival or whatnot I felt like I need to take it to the next level and so I became interested in producing a product. I didn’t know yet what I wanted to do but

I learned about a workshop for zine making and I thought this is a good place for me to start because making a zine is not as complicated or as difficult or as big as making a book. And I thought by doing that I can learn a lot ⁓ because the minute you start making a zine or a book you have to start thinking about your photos differently.

they have to work in a sequence, they have to work as a pairing. And so you start seeing your photography in a different light because you’re not just seeing your photography as a collection of desperate single photos that don’t connect with anything that you have, but instead you’re looking at your work as a body. And I discovered that, for example, some of the photos that I particularly really didn’t like as a standalone photo,

worked really really well in a sequence. Yeah, yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (24:20)

and maybe the other way around as well, yeah. The ones you love

all of a sudden are,

Eric Davidove (24:25)

Exactly,

yeah, you have to throw them out. So I took this workshop and I produced a zine and I really loved the experience of I bought this big

pin up board and I printed all my photos that I thought I wanted to put in my zine and I put them on the board and I moved them around a million times and took a step back and moved them around again and then playing with the design of the zine, like what size should the photo be? Should it be on one page? Should it go across two pages? How should it be cropped? Should it be square? Should it be landscape? Whatever.

Then you have to design your cover whatnot and the whole process was for me fun and creative So it was another way to enjoy my photography without actually having to go out and take the photo

So I produced my zine and my instructor, I’ll give him a shout out because he’s excellent and if your listeners want to do what I did, I highly recommend his course. His name is Ted Forbes. He has a channel called The Art of Photography.

Frederic Paulussen (25:38)

Yeah, I

think or at least I hope most listeners know about him because I’ve been following him for like 15 years, like 10 or 15 years on his channel. I actually saw his video about your zine this morning when kind of doing more back research and I was amazed at him because I think he’s very generous and kind with his reviewing.

Eric Davidove (25:47)

okay.

nice.

Frederic Paulussen (26:04)

But at same time you notice if he really likes something or not because like last week I saw a review of him and he kind of he tried to keep it constructive but he kind of destroyed or not destroyed but the general gist was

keep working on it and with your review it was really enjoyed it really liked ⁓ your end product I think or end results not product sorry so I think yeah it’s really cool to see your work in his channel

Eric Davidove (26:31)

He did, yeah.

Well,

thank you, thank you for watching that. He really pushed me to go further and deeper and go beyond the obvious. ⁓ And so I did that and it was a great experience for me. ⁓ And I thought, okay, I’ll continue taking photos at the flea market. Because that was about halfway through my first year at the flea market. I thought, well, I’ll make another zine to close out the second half of the year. So I’ll have two zines.

And I got to the end of that year and I started creating my second zine and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I thought, what is going on here? And so I thought, maybe this is gonna become a book. So I drafted up what I thought would be a good book and I sent it to Ted. I said, I don’t know, I’m like, not sure, should I make a zine, should I make a book? And so we had that conversation.

And he encouraged me to first do what feels right to you. But he said, making a book is a good natural next step for you. And he encouraged me to move in that direction if I’m ready. So I did. And I’m very proud of having done that. I like it. And now I want to do more. I just wish I had more ideas. But I think for those of you out there who are listening or yourself, Frederic, ⁓ I would highly suggest

suggest you start off either with a zine or a book, even if you don’t show anybody what you’ve done. It was just such a great learning experience, and there’s lots of ways you can do that, back to the money, where you can do that without investing a single penny. So for example, on my zine, I made the mistake of pre-ordering quite a few so I can get them for a reasonable price. I still have a lot left. ⁓

But on my book, I pre-ordered just a few because I used a company that allows you to just make it available to whoever wants it, they can buy it on demand. So you don’t have to make them in advance and then be stuck with them should no one buy them. This way if people want them, they can get them. If they don’t, they don’t. And that way you don’t have a garage full of books, right?

Frederic Paulussen (28:37)

Yeah.

Yeah and have a garage full of boxes. yeah. ⁓

that’s great. Yeah and so the did you also follow a workshop for the bookmaking or was it just eventually it came naturally after the experiences with the zines or?

Eric Davidove (29:06)

I

did not take a class, I watched a lot. There are a lot of good videos on YouTube where people talk about bookmaking. It wasn’t dramatically different from making a zine. So much of what I learned in my workshop was transferable to the bookmaking experience. But I also purchased a lot of photo books and started studying photo books.

Frederic Paulussen (29:13)

Okay.

Eric Davidove (29:32)

and then going on YouTube where people would share photo books. There are a lot of ⁓ people who have channels where they share photo books or critique them or discuss them with other people. So I studied a lot of photo books and I found that to be very useful.

Frederic Paulussen (29:50)

And which to me is, did you approach like, did you find photo books similar to your topic or did you go the other way around and found more photo books that are totally different to what you were doing or how did you pick and choose the books to influence you?

Eric Davidove (30:11)

I didn’t really, that’s a good question. I wasn’t trying to just look at street photography photo books. I looked at good photo books, what I thought were good photo books. for example, would, as you know, because we talked about Ted Forbes, he has episodes where he…

looks at viewer ⁓ mail, I think he calls it. And I looked at lot of all his episodes where he ⁓ looked at people’s books and talked about them. And those books were ⁓ landscape books. were books that have photos of people dancing, of pets, whatnot. It didn’t matter to me because I was more interested in the bookmaking process. What makes a good design?

How do you get in the head of someone who’s looking at your book? how do you, he talks a lot, Ted talks a lot about the visual language and he relates it a lot to music, because he has a background in music and how there’s a visual language and rhythm.

kind of like music and just getting my head around how to flow my photos to provide you as the person looking at my book with the right experience. So it was less about the type of photo and more about how to just assemble something that would be enjoyable to look at and engaging.

Frederic Paulussen (31:33)

That’s great, yeah, yeah, because sometimes I think we get too much stuck into the genre, I think, and sometimes it can be helpful to look at totally different genres. ⁓ Like last, or this weekend I saw a video of, for example, have Eduardo Ortiz, which is like a great street photographer as well. It was a video of two weeks in Kyrgyzstan, I think.

But he started doing landscape photography and he told it’s like I’m approaching this from a street photography mindset with like how to make compositions and everything. it’s I think he I’m not sure if he struggled with it or something, but he it’s sometimes interesting to approach it from a different angle, our genre or angle. And so I want to like leave the book making behind for one second.

just going back ⁓ going outside. So I read you were you used to be a street mime and also now you walk people’s dogs I understood. So which are two well of course the street mime thing was before you did street photography I think so but you you mentioned somewhere that it still was helpful and then I want to go to the the current situation with dog walking. Does that allow you to do more photography or is it hard to do

Eric Davidove (32:40)

Yes.

Frederic Paulussen (32:52)

combination of the two because I can imagine some dogs are very ⁓ attention needy or very ⁓ strong in pulling or whatever so yeah.

Eric Davidove (33:01)

Yeah.

I tried taking photos while I was walking dogs. It was impossible. So I don’t try anymore. maybe you’re like me when I’m outside. I just it never turns off. It’s not like one day I’m not a street photographer. The next day I am. So when I’m out, I’m still practicing. I’m still training my eye. I’m still looking for things, even though I’m not using my camera. I’m still thinking about taking photos. But back to the street mime.

Frederic Paulussen (33:09)

Okay.

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (33:34)

⁓ I didn’t also mention in my biography, but I used to be a sign language interpreter. And the mime and the sign language ⁓ worked for me because I’m visually, I’m very strong. I can’t remember a melody. I can’t sing. I wouldn’t be a terrible musician.

But visually I’m very strong, so subtle movements catch my eye. And I think it’s because of the mime and sign language that I notice things, sometimes even before they really happen, but I notice things very easily because I just am trained now ⁓ to see those things after all those years of performing on the streets and observing how people.

behave and then the sign language because sign language is a lot of fast movement that you need to really focus and train your eye to understand.

Frederic Paulussen (34:40)

Yeah, makes sense. And it’s funny you mentioned that you never turn off as well because I found myself to be like when I drive in a car or something, I see something to actually say like click and then I made a photo for myself even though I have no camera with me. it’s… Yeah.

Eric Davidove (34:55)

That’s good, that’s good. It’s like going to the gym. Because you’re

keeping your eyes sharp and ready.

Frederic Paulussen (35:02)

Yeah, yeah sometimes

you just see something it’s not even like keeping your eye sharp it’s just this is this beautiful light on a beautiful bridge while I’m driving or whatever and you’re like just acknowledge it for a second and move on. So I was wondering about the because all your photos have like a comical aspect maybe it’s also linked to the the mime thing which is also kind of

Eric Davidove (35:11)

Yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (35:30)

Usually it’s more into the comedy ⁓ direction of street performances, I think. ⁓ So is there a reason you find those moments attractive?

Eric Davidove (35:43)

I think about this a lot, ⁓ because as I said, when I reflect on my photos, I keep asking myself, why am I so attracted to these humorous situations? I think in large part, it has to do with where I take my photos. So if I was not in San Francisco taking photos, I don’t know if I would have so many photos of humor. It just so happens I see that.

in San Francisco and it’s prevalent in San Francisco. I think partly also because I do have a sense of humor and I maybe, I am looking for those things subconsciously, but I do think in large part it just has to do with where I chose to take photos. ⁓ I think some people,

That’s why when I look at people’s photos, ⁓ don’t, I’m not trying to like say, ⁓ you know, why aren’t you doing more of this or this or this? It could be because of where they live. They just don’t have the opportunities to take that type of photo. You know, maybe they live in a place where there’s just really good light and good architecture and good colors. And so that becomes the…

the main focus of other composition. For me, it’s the people and it’s the things that people do. And the craziness that I see in the city is what I think makes San Francisco different from most places in the world. So that’s where I tend to focus.

Frederic Paulussen (37:25)

Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. I think I discussed it a few episodes ago with Thomas Bugatti from his base in Hong Kong. We were discussing about how much the location you are or city you are in, how much it influences your type of street photography or your work. So it makes sense that it might happen that in San Francisco, there’s more comical situations than…

I don’t know, in Paris or whatever. So it makes sense, And so have you tried doing street photography in different cities or countries maybe even already? And did you find it more, well, more difficult or maybe influencing you in a different way or… Okay.

Eric Davidove (38:12)

Yeah, for me, not as successful and a lot more difficult when

I travel and take photos. think ⁓ for a variety of reasons, what I do like is that I remember ⁓ Mike Chudley, I think that’s his name if I’m saying it wrong, excuse me, but you maybe listen to his or watch his YouTube videos. He talks about the novelty effect. How when he goes to a new place, because he’s never been there before,

and it’s novel, he’ll take pictures that he might not take if he was familiar with the area because they just don’t look that interesting to him anymore. So there is that novelty effect and I’ll find that I take photos when I’m traveling that I would not necessarily take in my hometown. But because I don’t know the area as well.

as where I shoot on a regular basis. I’m not familiar with the rhythms and the right locations and how the sun travels. I don’t have great success.

and I don’t see the kinds of things I’m used to finding and maybe I’m looking for those things and I don’t find them so I don’t take as many photos. I still enjoy it, I still try it, because I think it’s good to get out of your comfort zone and to get someplace new and just experiment and try to work under different conditions, but I generally don’t end up with very good photos.

Frederic Paulussen (39:40)

Okay,

it’s funny to hear. For me, like I had an experience, it’s almost half a year ago in London that I took some photos and I was very proud of it. I was like, ah, I’m sure like this is original and this is, and then I saw fairly similar photos of the same places on like other people’s Instagram all of a sudden. It’s like, this was not original at all. It’s just, I’d never been there, so I never saw it. And now I recognize the place and I recognize that other people did the same thing.

Eric Davidove (39:59)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (40:10)

So it’s

funny.

Eric Davidove (40:14)

I have a trip planned in October of this year. I’m going to go to Hong Kong. I’ve been there a couple times. My girlfriend was born there. So ⁓ I’m going to be there for three weeks. So maybe this time will be different because I feel like I’ve grown a lot since the last time we were there in terms of my skill set. So we’ll see. Maybe I’ll answer your question differently when I get back from Hong Kong. Maybe I’ll have a breakthrough. Yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (40:16)

you

Yeah.

We’ll have a part two in December then, yeah.

It’s funny, maybe we could do like a double episode with Tom Bugatti who is from there as well, about the different experiences you might have as different shooters, because he’s more of a composition and architectural kind of photo type and you’re more of a comedy. So it’s kind of different genres as well. So it might be interesting to see you.

Eric Davidove (40:56)

Yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (41:09)

interpreting the same location differently.

Eric Davidove (41:13)

It’s funny you say that because I have a friend who I met for the first time. I’ve known him on social media. He came here ⁓ from Argentina.

and he spent a month and took photos. It was really fascinating for me to see the photos he was taking because he was getting some really good photos of places I had never seen before or situations I’d not seen before. And I was like, wow. And so that was a fresh perspective. And it was really interesting to see how someone else comes here with a street photography background and to see what kind of photos they take of an area that I know so well. So I thought, geez, I need to come back to the city.

and pretend this is my first time here, you know, ⁓ to see things like he did. ⁓ But it was, yeah, it’s quite an interesting experience when you have someone coming to your town from elsewhere and then looking at how they saw the things that you see on a regular basis.

Frederic Paulussen (42:15)

True, Yeah, very much. So have you done like shooting with him together or you just saw the results?

Eric Davidove (42:22)

I did spend time with him in the city, but I don’t like shooting with other people. Not because I’m anti-social, it’s because I can’t chew gum and walk at the same time. When I’m out there shooting, I’m in my zone. It takes all my concentration. If I start talking to other people, then I can’t focus on what I’m doing and I can’t take good shots.

Frederic Paulussen (42:47)

So do you sometimes talk to the people you photograph? Because for example, I’ve heard people who love doing it and actually that’s why they get into street photography. But I also heard people who say like, if I start talking then I get out of the flow and I’m done for the day. So I’m curious.

Eric Davidove (43:03)

It depends.

depends. Sometimes I will talk to people and I’ll end up having a really interesting conversation. I don’t.

I don’t purposely set out to do that often, but sometimes it just naturally happens. I’ll take a photo of someone and they’ll notice I took their photo after I took it. And I’ll be laughing because of the photo I took is just so funny that I’ll say, my God, you won’t believe what I just did. And I’ll walk over and show them the photo and we’ll have a laugh together. We’ll talk about it. And then, you know, that happens once in a while and that’s fun. But they’re not usually conversations that last too long.

you know, a few minutes and then we move on. We just each go our separate ways.

Frederic Paulussen (43:51)

Yeah, that’s great. Because yeah, lot of it is people involved, of course, with what you do. And there’s also fairly often some interaction or at least they should have noticed you. So that’s nice to hear. And to my feeling, you’re more of a… Like we talked about the fishing and the hunting earlier, you mentioned it. So I feel like you’re more of a hunter or is that a wrong assumption?

Eric Davidove (44:18)

I don’t know anymore. it depends If I’m walking and its hot I’m thirsty and tired I’ll stop and just wait for something to happen. It depends how my mood Depends how many good shots I think I already have that day. It depends on how much sleep I had the night before

Frederic Paulussen (44:21)

That’s actually a better answer.

Yeah.

Eric Davidove (44:41)

It depends. I like doing both. What I have found is I’m much slower now and much more thoughtful and mindful. I’m not just rushing and going boom, boom, boom, boom. In fact, my old camera.

was ⁓ an autofocus with multiple frames per second and I was coming home with like hundreds maybe even a thousand photos. Three years ago I bought a Leica M11 which is a rangefinder and I purposely keep it on single ⁓ shot shutter.

Frederic Paulussen (45:18)

Okay.

Eric Davidove (45:19)

because I want to have more of a film-like experience. I want to be more purposeful and more thoughtful about when I push the button and I want to have more control over when I take the picture. ⁓ So I’m slowing down, I’m observing, I’m anticipating, I’m thinking about my composition.

⁓ I’m lingering around things more. I’m not rushing into the photo as much as I used to. There’s moments when you have to or you lose the moment, right? If you don’t take the picture, it’s gone. But I try more now to approach it slowly and get into this situation and think about what I’m doing before I do it. And I’m getting better results because of that.

Frederic Paulussen (45:53)

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, and so that makes me curious to, I think there’s a lot of questions coming from different angles to the same point maybe. So you try to be more conscious, more slow, and you also mentioned buying the M11 and ⁓ putting it on single shot instead of burst mode. Did you first buy the camera and did that involve your…

or influence your way of shooting and going slower or was it the other way around? Did you want to go slower and then bought the camera and kept it at that setting? If that makes sense.

Eric Davidove (46:49)

Yeah,

it was because I was getting frustrated with my previous camera because I was spending too much time fighting with the autofocus. I was spending too much time looking at the menu choices. I was spending less time on the composition. I said, I really need to get a camera that’s going to be simpler to use, that’s going to ⁓ work for me. ⁓ And

and allow me to really be more thoughtful, be more mindful, and think more about my composition and less about operating the camera. So that’s what drove me into purchasing that camera.

Frederic Paulussen (47:28)

Okay, so it was first the idea and then the technology. Okay, yeah, it could happen the other way around, which is totally fine, I think. We’re just a bit curious.

Eric Davidove (47:33)

Yes.

Yeah, but the kids, know a lot of people

say gear doesn’t matter. I understand that perspective and ⁓ I think it’s a mistake to think that if you’re gonna go buy a new camera, all of sudden your photos are going to improve. That’s not true. But I will say ⁓ that switching to this camera has made a difference to me. I think I’m getting photos now that I was not.

getting or would not get with my previous camera. So it didn’t matter to me. It’s not the whole story, but it did make a difference for me. So think gear does matter, but it’s not the most important thing to think about, if you know what I mean.

Frederic Paulussen (48:15)

I know.

No, exactly. think the same thing as well. If gear doesn’t matter, then why would people still shoot analog, for example, as well? Because that’s a gear choice. You don’t shoot different subjects necessarily, but it’s a gear choice. Same with choosing a different camera. I prefer, I have two cameras that I use for my commercial work. Two different, well, same brand, but two different… ⁓

camera models and I use the cheapest and well not the best of the two for my street work because it’s it’s smaller and it’s more manageable in the streets while the other is like a big clunky camera which is great for doing events which is great for doing portraits but it’s annoying on the streets even though the autofocus is a lot better even though ⁓ like all the functions are better

Eric Davidove (48:58)

Yeah.

Yeah.

my previous camera was big and clunky like the one you’re describing and it was getting a lot of attention when I was using it. And I think a lot of people assumed I was this professional photographer and it didn’t allow me to be as ⁓ discreet as the camera I have now, which is much smaller and I can almost look like a tourist just walking around taking photos. It’s like the Gary Winogrand trick, you know, where he, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Frederic Paulussen (49:37)

Yeah.

He fumbles with the camera, it’s like a video of him fumbling,

And do you find that ⁓ with the smaller camera you can get more up close? do you find people in San Francisco are okay with being photographed or not really?

Eric Davidove (49:45)

Yeah, yeah.

I find San Francisco people ⁓ to be okay with being photographed for the most part. Of course you have to be ethical.

I mean, we have a lot of people on the streets who have mental challenges or drug addictions who are homeless. So you want to be very careful not to do anything that’s going to upset them or exploit them. That could create some bad situations. And there may be some people, and there are a few people who just don’t like their photo taken. What I found is that when you try to be sneaky,

and you try to take someone’s photo without being seen, you get called out and you look bad and people don’t like that. But if on the other hand, you’re just confident and you take the photo, you’re just doing something natural because you’re a photographer and that’s what you do, you just take photos, people usually don’t respond negatively to that. They’re like, ⁓ there’s just this crazy old man taking my photo, whatever.

but I’m doing it with confidence like I’m not doing anything wrong, and that generally gets a better response.

Frederic Paulussen (51:05)

Yeah, whatever onwards, yeah.

Yeah and I know you or I assume you learned that with your project the train runners because I think you mentioned it in the description as well it’s it’s well for the listeners of course there’s links in the description and I’ll mention them later as well ⁓ but it’s a series about you standing on a platform waiting for your own train I assume and people running for to catch their train so and you mentioned somewhere that it’s it’s it was a nice way to get into it because those people

Yeah, can’t stop because they have to catch the train, can’t tell you off. So was it like a way you developed the way to shoot ⁓ more close to people or was it just a happy coincidence?

Eric Davidove (51:44)

Exactly.

It was a happy coincidence because as you said, I was commuting to work on the train and I noticed that when I got off my train to go to my shuttle bus that every morning there were a handful of people running for the train like clockwork and it just.

made me laugh to see how many people were running for this train. So I decided I better bring my camera and document this because I have 10 minutes every morning I can just stand there before my shuttle comes and take these photos. And I just found it to be quite funny. But it gave me, ⁓ it’s like the flea market. It was a situation with constraints. ⁓ Same place, same location, same time.

same camera, same moment. And then when you work with situations with constraints, then it forces you to really play around and get creative because otherwise it becomes redundant and boring. The same thing was true in the flea market. One of the benefits of going there every week was

I had to learn because after a couple months I found I’m taking the same photos again. I can’t continue doing that. It’ll be boring. So it’s it pushed me to do things differently under those constraints. So it gave me it was a good exercise for for helping me be more creative with my camera.

Frederic Paulussen (53:29)

⁓

Yeah, makes total sense. And the constraints for the flea market was it’s once a week and it’s only for a few hours or… Yeah.

Eric Davidove (53:39)

Yeah, yeah, so the flea market

is open ⁓ only on the weekends. ⁓ And usually it’s between 12 and 3 are the times when you have a lot of people and they start.

people start leaving at 3.30 or 4 and it closes down. So you have like a three hour window and it’s usually on a Saturday or a Sunday. But Sunday I find is the best date to go. So it’s usually it’s a Sunday for me. so you’ve got the sun always more or less traveling the same way. ⁓ The flea market is the setup is the same every week. So it’s not like they rebuild it every weekend. They’re somewhat permanent stalls with the same vendors

week so that doesn’t change. You have different people doing different things so that’s the only variable in the equation. I purposely chose to use the same lens for every photo just to have that consistency. Again building on this idea of constraints that was a conscious decision is to work in that type of situation. ⁓

It was very hard, I have to tell you, it was very, very hard ⁓ to really find ways to dig deeper, to add variation, to get in some creativity. So it didn’t look like the same thing over and over and over and over again. ⁓ And so now when I…

when I go out to the city, I think it helps me when I’m out there to shoot things differently because I now I think my thought process is different. It’s deeper. It’s pushing myself to say, don’t just take that photo that a hundred other photographers would take if they were standing right here at this time. What can I do that no one else would think of? And forcing myself to go in a different direction than what

would be a knee-jerk reaction and what would be common.

Frederic Paulussen (55:41)

Yeah, exactly. ⁓ That’s hard to do, yeah. I think if you succeed in it, you get great photos. So I’ll have to start constraining the time here. have one last, yeah, it’s a good segue, but I do have one last question ⁓ on the topic of constraints as well. And to move back to your bookmaking, maybe.

Eric Davidove (55:44)

That’s hard to do.

That’s a good segue.

Frederic Paulussen (56:08)

because you have of course a constraint of how many photos you can publish. I mean, you can make a very thick book of 10,000 photos, but I don’t think anyone would really enjoy going through it. So, but apart from the amount of photos, did you put yourself some constraints for the book as well, for the bookmaking? Like time-wise, like I have to finish this in this time or how did you use a process there?

Eric Davidove (56:36)

From a time perspective, I had no deadline. ⁓ And I didn’t know when it was going to be done. In fact, I probably had 100 iterations of what that book was going to look like and never knowing, am I done now? I wake up the next day like, no, I’m going to change this. ⁓

You just know, at least I did, I knew it was done. One day I just said, okay, it’s done. And I said, let’s just move forward. Because you could work on it forever. I mean, it’s really. But there are some constraints, of course, as you said, you don’t want to have too few photos, yet you don’t want to have too many photos.

Frederic Paulussen (57:05)

Yeah, true.

Eric Davidove (57:15)

And then also ⁓ when you start pairing the photos and sequencing the photos, that pretty much also dictates what goes in and what goes out. ⁓ So you end up with something where you feel like it’s, can’t make it any bigger because then it’ll lose its power. ⁓ So yeah, there are some constraints. ⁓

But there’s also a lot of, and if you don’t have certain constraints, you’ll never finish. ⁓ So I did know, for example, in this case, that I wanted ⁓ the book to only contain photos from one year. So I knew that if I continued to go to the flea market, whatever I took after my one year mark, those photos would not be in the book.

Frederic Paulussen (58:00)

Okay, yeah.

Eric Davidove (58:10)

So I did, that helped me because then I had a smaller pool of photos to choose from.

Frederic Paulussen (58:11)

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, it makes sense. you really said like, this is a start period or did you like move the window a bit to like, okay, this, two months at first was a practice run and now or.

Eric Davidove (58:28)

No,

from the first day of shooting and then one year after that is, and I pretty much started shooting in early January and I ended shooting at the end of January the following year. So it was about 13 months.

Frederic Paulussen (58:33)

Okay.

Yeah, and so it’s a nice calendar year as well, which kind of shows the seasons maybe, so that’s cool. Yeah, so that’s cool. Okay, so yeah, unfortunately we’ll have to start wrapping it up there. That went by very fast. I tried to keep it to an hour, so it’s interesting or it stays interesting for people to listen because I feel like if a podcast is longer than an hour, I…

Eric Davidove (58:47)

Yes. Shows the seasons, exactly.

Well, that went by fast.

Frederic Paulussen (59:11)

First of all, I usually don’t even open it because I feel like it’s too much of a time investment. But also, like an hour is manageable. So that’s why I give myself that constraint.

Eric Davidove (59:14)

I agree.

Frederic Paulussen (59:22)

⁓ So thank you Eric for your time and insights, it was very interesting. ⁓ If anyone wants to follow Eric, of course his links are in the description, so make sure to follow his amazing photos on Instagram but also on his website and also on Flickr and I saw you you’re very ⁓ active on all platforms so that’s great. ⁓

And course also make sure to follow the podcast on whatever favorite platform you like. ⁓ And again, all links to Eric’s work will be in the show notes. So see you in the next episode.

Eric Davidove (1:00:03)

Thank

you, Frederic. It was a great pleasure to meet you and to talk to you. And I wish you all the best.