INTRODUCING DAVID ZILBER
I was born in Toronto Ontario, and currently reside in Vancouver British Columbia. I moved here for my current job about a year and a half ago. Vancouver has its merits, but it’s not my favourite city. I find it a little… small. I’m 26 years old. When I broke my old shitty point and shoot digital camera in a mosh pit in late 2008, I never replaced it, but rather, switched to film disposables after that happened. It was then that I learnt that you had to consider the photo you were taking, or it just wouldn’t turn out. Let’s say that was the point I started taking pictures seriously. I suppose most humans have an attraction to documentation and record. The sense of sight gets primacy. I’m no different. Sure, I enjoy a lot of different mediums, painting, sculpture, design, but photos seem the most visceral. My goals? Man, if I knew what my goal was, I think I’d be ‘finished’. Whatever that means. I don’t like saying that I’m stumbling around in the dark in terms of my art work, but I feel the longer I do it, and the more I self curate, I find my self chipping away at a style, shedding the dead weight of visual aesthetics, and getting closer to core of whatever it is that propels me to make photographs. For a long time, I’d never wanted to be called a ‘photographer’. I was a chef first, and also happened to enjoy making photos. But when people start putting your art in magazines or asking you to participate in gallery shows, it’s a little hard to deny. I’m so grateful I have photography as this other THING in my life. I feel it makes me a richer person to have two wildly different pursuits on the go. Without photography, I wouldn’t have gotten to fly to New York last month for my second show! It just finished up, but it was called ‘Good As New’. And I got to display work alongside the 5 photographers alive today that I actually truly admire. The people who influence me artistically. I’ve never dabbled with medium format cameras, but I think the Mamiya 7’s pretty cute… This is a picture of the only camera I use. It’s a Canon Elan 7. It’s a fucking tank. And super reliable. I’ve learned to use it, and it’s learned to use me. I carry it with me everywhere. So ya, like I said, after I broke my digital cam, I started on film. I shot on disposables for about a year, and it was fun, but, speaking about it with my dad one day, he reminded me of the old family SLR (a Canon 3000) he still had kicking around the house. He was kind enough to hand it off to me, and it was then I’d say, that I really saw the potential of images. The better your camera gets, the more it eggs you on to make better images I find. Or at least consider the possibilities thereof. God help me If I ever lay my hands on a Mamiya 7… I have a huge crush on all the guys over at Je Suis Une Bandes De Jeunes but I swear, every time I see a photo by Nico Poillot I’m kinda blown away. I’ve said this before about photographers I admire, but when you see someone’s work, appreciate it, and more importantly, can get inside their head by doing so, that’s huge. Not to mention he’s funny.
