Latest / The MOOD Podcast / Blurring the Boundaries: Doron Gild, EO78

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Blurring the Boundaries: Doron Gild, EO78 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Matt Jacob: Welcome along to the Mood Podcast, uncovering the art of conversation one frame at a time.
• 0:05
  Matt Jacob: I'm your host, matt Jacob, and thank you for joining me today in this conversation.
• 0:10
  Matt Jacob: In this episode, I'm joined by Doron Guild, a photographer whose work stands at the intersection of fine art and commercial photography.
• 0:18
  Matt Jacob: Known for his distinctive ability to capture the rawness of human emotion and the artistry of everyday objects, doron has built a career that challenges conventional boundaries in the visual arts, with an impressive portfolio spanning editorial portraiture and advertising.
• 0:35
  Matt Jacob: His work is as diverse as it is thought-provoking.
• 0:38
  Matt Jacob: Our conversation delves into his creative journey, from his beginnings in Israel to establishing himself in the bustling art scene of New York.
• 0:47
  Matt Jacob: We discuss his methods for finding authenticity in his subjects, the psychology of portraiture and the intricate balance between artistic integrity and commercial demands.
• 0:57
  Matt Jacob: Daron shares insights into his philosophy on creativity, the challenges of navigating a rapidly changing industry and the unique techniques that make his photography so compelling.
• 1:08
  Matt Jacob: This episode really offers a fascinating exploration of the art of making pictures, not just taking them, and I'm excited for you to join us as we uncover the mind behind the lens.
• 1:19
  Matt Jacob: So now I bring you Doron Guild.
• 1:34
  Matt Jacob: Doron Guild, welcome to the the Moo Podcast.
• 1:37
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for joining me.
• 1:37
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for having me, matt.
• 1:39
  Matt Jacob: I appreciate it.
• 1:39
  Matt Jacob: Another excellent photographer who I found in New York.
• 1:44
  Matt Jacob: There's so many of you incredible artists over there.
• 1:47
  Matt Jacob: What took you to New York, or have you always been?
• 1:50
  Doron Gild: there.
• 1:51
  Doron Gild: No, I moved when I was 19.
• 1:52
  Doron Gild: I moved from Israel when I was 19, which is now 26 years ago, and I came to New York to be a cinematographer, which did not work out in my favor by choice, but it just didn't happen.
• 2:06
  Doron Gild: So, but everything else just fell into place slowly but surely.
• 2:12
  Matt Jacob: Interesting.
• 2:13
  Matt Jacob: Well, we'll talk about your journey in a minute, but there was something that really kind of stuck out to me when I was looking a little bit more deeply into your background and your work and one of the ways I think your images were described or at least your style was portraits within portraits, right Layers and layers of stories.
• 2:32
  Matt Jacob: Can you elaborate on kind of that process and that concept that you're so well known for?
• 2:37
  Doron Gild: So I think that in the beginning, when I was first starting off and figuring out my voice and figuring out what I like to do, I was seeing a lot of photographers that just turned me on, like Arnold, newman and Seliger and Leibowitz, and all of these people were making these grandiose photographs of people which you could just easily take the person out and it would still be the same feeling and the same portrait.
• 3:00
  Doron Gild: So I've always wanted to just make photographs that, no matter what was going on, you would find out who the person is, over and over and over again.
• 3:12
  Doron Gild: And that's the space and that's the person and that's the whatever's on their table, whatever's around them.
• 3:15
  Doron Gild: I mean, my room right now is a great example of fuck all but either way.
• 3:20
  Doron Gild: But that's always, it's always been, it's been a thing.
• 3:24
  Doron Gild: And slowly but surely, I got to the point where I was like I have to make this moment as opposed to just find it, because I used to go when I first started off.
• 3:32
  Doron Gild: Um, I used to go to locations with a four by five, two sheets of film and two, two polaroids, and if I got it, I got it.
• 3:41
  Doron Gild: If I didn't get it, I wasn't good enough, and obviously that's ridiculous, but it helped me figure out how to slow down and help me figure out how to think, and help me figure out how to look at specific stuff in order to be able to describe what I was feeling and or seeing.
• 3:59
  Matt Jacob: And where do you think that the seminal moment was for you in terms of that style?
• 4:04
  Matt Jacob: I mean, what sticks out immediately to a layman, I guess would be your unique and very intriguing style, which is just fascinating.
• 4:13
  Matt Jacob: And then knowing, as a photographer, what goes into getting that style and creating those stories from still images is what is really sparks curiosity.
• 4:24
  Matt Jacob: But where did you know?
• 4:26
  Matt Jacob: We talked about inspirations and we can kind of that that's kind of public knowledge to who your big inspirations are but was really that where it came from?
• 4:34
  Doron Gild: you know, just studying other artists no, I think that what, realistically, it came from trying to find what was passionate for me and what and what drove me, and it was always portraits and it was always people.
• 4:45
  Doron Gild: But I got to the point where just making pictures of people was kind of boring.
• 4:51
  Doron Gild: I felt like anybody could do what I was doing.
• 4:53
  Doron Gild: I felt like I was like an imposter in some way.
• 4:55
  Doron Gild: So I had to figure out a way to bring into the ideas and bring in myself and bring in the making part of photographs.
• 5:02
  Doron Gild: So I don't take photographs.
• 5:04
  Doron Gild: I can't.
• 5:04
  Doron Gild: I, I can't like.
• 5:05
  Doron Gild: I have too many rigs, too many lights, too many big cameras.
• 5:07
  Doron Gild: I have to make the photograph.
• 5:09
  Doron Gild: I have to be very specific, I have to be intentional, which is totally different than the way I used to go, where I'm walking around with a four by five on my shoulder and like let's see what we find.
• 5:19
  Doron Gild: So, from going from taking photographs to making photographs, from going from taking photographs to making photographs I think that school did that for me, even though I think I would have gotten there eventually.
• 5:30
  Doron Gild: But I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York and it just got to a point where I didn't feel like I was any good and I needed to figure out what was good.
• 5:42
  Doron Gild: So, slowly but surely, make making.
• 5:45
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I think that's such a big delineator between you know, good photographs and excellent photographs, or good photographers and excellent photographers.
• 5:53
  Matt Jacob: Is the intention behind it right?
• 5:55
  Matt Jacob: And do you get much kickback or criticism with the way you?
• 6:00
  Matt Jacob: I mean, I know I do, and so I'm sure you do, but criticisms in terms of how you set images up and in that creation side of it.
• 6:09
  Doron Gild: I suppose I mean at this stage, the criticism I get at this stage is only from myself and it comes down to way way before I make the photographs, because I can't afford to make the wrong photograph at this point and I make them for specific people, for specific reasons.
• 6:28
  Doron Gild: So it's all very intentional.
• 6:30
  Doron Gild: Obviously, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
• 6:33
  Doron Gild: And obviously people who like straight photography, or purists, so to speak, and just go out and find important things or fascinating things, then they'll be like, what is this photograph for?
• 6:47
  Doron Gild: Like, why are you making these pictures?
• 6:49
  Doron Gild: So it's beyond being my creative outlet, beyond being my art, it's also specifically for something or somebody.
• 6:57
  Doron Gild: I've always been stuck between commercial work and artwork.
• 7:00
  Doron Gild: I have two artists, two artistic for commercial work, two commercial for artistic work.
• 7:05
  Doron Gild: So I've been like in this weird gray area of trying to figure out where I belong.
• 7:09
  Doron Gild: So even if somebody says, oh, it's going well, let's hope it keeps going, I mean it's like the career is like 25 years in, so let's just make sure that we can still make a living and still make pictures.
• 7:23
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, that's a success.
• 7:25
  Matt Jacob: Right there, you're still around, still making a living and still make pictures.
• 7:26
  Matt Jacob: That's a success.
• 7:26
  Matt Jacob: Right there, you're still around, still making a living from what you love doing.
• 7:28
  Matt Jacob: It's crazy.
• 7:29
  Doron Gild: It's hard, it's hard and it's scary.
• 7:31
  Doron Gild: The industry changes every fucking day.
• 7:34
  Doron Gild: Oh my goodness.
• 7:37
  Matt Jacob: We'll get into that a bit later.
• 7:39
  Doron Gild: Now I'm indoors.
• 7:41
  Matt Jacob: I'm going to de-robe Now.
• 7:44
  Matt Jacob: You're sweating because you're under pressure.
• 7:46
  Doron Gild: Yeah, look at this, I'm talking about myself and all that shit.
• 7:48
  Doron Gild: It's weird.
• 7:51
  Matt Jacob: It's so weird.
• 7:51
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for doing it, we all appreciate it, but why you talked about doing it for individual people as well as groups?
• 8:01
  Matt Jacob: Commercial for art?
• 8:02
  Matt Jacob: One of the specific individuals I've seen you photograph for for commercial purposes was, uh, bon jovi, who was such a well, still is a hero of mine, but you know, I grew up listening to to him.
• 8:16
  Matt Jacob: I just wanted, just from a self-interest what a fucking darling really.
• 8:20
  Matt Jacob: Tell me, tell me about that shoot.
• 8:23
  Doron Gild: I couldn't.
• 8:23
  Doron Gild: Well, it was four years worth of shooting.
• 8:25
  Doron Gild: I did everything for him for a while yeah, like once.
• 8:28
  Doron Gild: So I was hired to do all his wine stuff.
• 8:32
  Doron Gild: A friend of mine did his PR for his wine stuff and I was hired to.
• 8:38
  Doron Gild: Well, he called and he's like you look really expensive, Can we afford this?
• 8:42
  Doron Gild: And I'm like I don't know what do you want to spend?
• 8:45
  Doron Gild: So we got to a point where I was like let's just, let's just fucking do this and give me what you want and we'll make great pictures.
• 8:51
  Doron Gild: We went and we went up to the Hamptons after I sketched out ideas and I scouted and I do all like the process of the game, but it's all very intentional.
• 9:01
  Doron Gild: So I go out to New Jersey, I go out to the Hamptons, I find the right spots and we spent.
• 9:06
  Doron Gild: I think that we did two, three campaigns for the wine.
• 9:10
  Doron Gild: I did a family shoot for him, I did portrait shoots like headshots for him, I did Christmas cards for him.
• 9:19
  Doron Gild: We just ended up always just making pictures together and then I got too expensive.
• 9:27
  Matt Jacob: For even for Bon Jovi.
• 9:29
  Doron Gild: Wow, yeah, I guess it was a matter of like what he wanted to spend on and what he wanted at the end, but it wasn't like a bad thing.
• 9:38
  Doron Gild: We still chit chat, we still text.
• 9:39
  Doron Gild: Like he's really a darling, him, and his like his whole family, they're just.
• 9:45
  Doron Gild: They were very welcoming, they were very sweet.
• 9:47
  Doron Gild: Whenever we were making work he was there with us.
• 9:51
  Doron Gild: It wasn't like a prima donna kind of like let's walk in for the shoot and leave after five minutes.
• 9:56
  Doron Gild: He was like cleaning the floors and shit.
• 9:58
  Doron Gild: It was special.
• 10:01
  Matt Jacob: Wow, I want to meet him.
• 10:03
  Matt Jacob: I might have to just keep tapping you up.
• 10:05
  Doron Gild: introduce me, introduce me like a little he's a darling he really is, and he's busy as fuck all the time crazy yeah, I guess these guys they're just.
• 10:15
  Matt Jacob: They love what they do, right, um, or either that or they spend all their money and need to keep earning, but I don't know he's.
• 10:21
  Doron Gild: He's frugal in a way where it just lets him do whatever he wants.
• 10:25
  Doron Gild: Like him and his son started a wine business and he travels and he does.
• 10:29
  Doron Gild: He opens a soup kitchen, like he's really like.
• 10:33
  Matt Jacob: I'm just gonna do my thing what about you and you doing your things?
• 10:37
  Matt Jacob: Get back to um, to you in photography.
• 10:39
  Matt Jacob: What give me um, give me a high level overview of kind of why, why you started it in the first place, what is it about photography that really captured your attention and, 25 years later, why that passion must still be there.
• 10:53
  Matt Jacob: But why do you?
• 10:55
  Doron Gild: It was never not there.
• 10:56
  Doron Gild: It was never not there, like when I was six, it was there.
• 11:00
  Doron Gild: I got money for a birthday or something.
• 11:02
  Doron Gild: I went and I bought a little 110 Kodak you know those really cute ones.
• 11:07
  Doron Gild: It was blue, it was adorable and it was always something that I could do and it was always something that was there Even before I could really do it properly.
• 11:16
  Doron Gild: It was always something that I knew that I got this one, which is why I wanted to go into cinematography.
• 11:21
  Doron Gild: But getting into that space was really rough because basically you start at the very bottom of anything, which means that you're doing fuck, all that's got to do with cinematography.
• 11:34
  Doron Gild: You're bringing coffee, you're moving trays, you're 15 hour days in the freezing cold and you're nowhere near being a boss and I like being a boss.
• 11:44
  Doron Gild: So I just decided that that was enough and I picked up.
• 11:51
  Doron Gild: I have had an F3 since I was 14.
• 11:55
  Doron Gild: And it's always been with me and I just started taking it more seriously.
• 12:01
  Matt Jacob: And then you took the formal education route.
• 12:04
  Doron Gild: Yeah, well, I started working at a camera store really close to the School of Visual Arts and all the students would come in and I'm like this is awesome, they're all pretty cool, they're all doing things that I love.
• 12:15
  Doron Gild: So I started taking classes and figuring things out, got really friendly with everybody over there and just became part of my life and then I started school.
• 12:31
  Doron Gild: So I started school about two years after I'd already spent time in the studios over there in the dark rooms and all that stuff and I just became second nature and the work started getting better and smarter and a little bit less snappy.
• 12:46
  Matt Jacob: How would you, would you recommend the?
• 12:47
  Matt Jacob: I mean, I don't speak to many photographers that took that formal route.
• 12:52
  Matt Jacob: Maybe I need to widen my network, but nowadays it seems like everyone's self-taught Is that you know.
• 12:57
  Matt Jacob: How do you compare what you did compared to what you could do now?
• 13:01
  Doron Gild: Well, I think that the most that I learned in photography was being on set with photographers that I worked with, plain and simple.
• 13:11
  Doron Gild: But I learned about art in photo school.
• 13:14
  Doron Gild: I learned how to think about art, I learned how to think critically and I learned how to take criticism, besides the fact that I learned how to sculpt and paint and all these other wonderful things that I wouldn't have had access to.
• 13:27
  Doron Gild: But, to be perfectly frank, nowadays, if not only you know what you want and you can do what you want and you can get on sets with other photographers, that's where it is A hundred percent, A hundred percent.
• 13:43
  Matt Jacob: A hundred percent, A hundred percent.
• 13:45
  Matt Jacob: That kind of art education, though, really sculpted your process at least, if not your style.
• 13:54
  Matt Jacob: Is that correct?
• 13:55
  Matt Jacob: Tell us, because you sketch a lot of your concepts out on paper before you even put it together for a camera.
• 13:59
  Matt Jacob: Tell us what your process would look like if you went to shoot a family shoot or something.
• 14:04
  Doron Gild: Tell us what your process would look like if you went to shoot a family shoot or something.
• 14:08
  Doron Gild: So it's really involved and it takes.
• 14:15
  Doron Gild: I guess it'd take weeks to do a family shoot, for example.
• 14:17
  Doron Gild: We do the first initial conversation, we start to get to know.
• 14:18
  Doron Gild: People know each other.
• 14:19
  Doron Gild: I'm having trouble with my speaking and breathing.
• 14:22
  Doron Gild: Just bear with me.
• 14:24
  Doron Gild: I guess I'm a little nervous.
• 14:27
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, and breathing.
• 14:28
  Matt Jacob: Just bear with me, I guess I'm a little nervous.
• 14:30
  Matt Jacob: Yeah right, take your time.
• 14:31
  Doron Gild: Take as long as you need Initial phone call and we start figuring out what people are like, who they want, what they're expecting, and I go and I meet them for the first time, wherever we're going to be photographing, so I could scout the location.
• 14:45
  Doron Gild: That's the first scout I go and I snap away at all my favorite little moments Like I'll look for no, this is a good little rectangle, that's a great little rectangle, so I'll snap away, snap away, snap away.
• 14:56
  Doron Gild: But and obviously we're chit-chatting as we're going along I'm finding out about what they like, what they do.
• 15:02
  Doron Gild: Little words about like, seriously, like a word would be enough for me to start thinking of an idea.
• 15:09
  Doron Gild: So we keep talking, keep talking.
• 15:12
  Doron Gild: By the time that I'm leaving, I either have a basic idea or know that I'll be able to find it within the rectangles slash photographs that I took.
• 15:23
  Doron Gild: I come home, I look through the stuff and I start thinking about ideas again, personality-wise, within the space that I have because I have a limited amount of space, or a limited amount of opportunities, if you will and I think of the ideas and slowly but surely, I find a way to put the action or the story into what's already existing, even if I have to change the setup as far as moving furniture or adding drapes or whatever it is, and then I go back and I make plates.
• 16:03
  Doron Gild: So I literally go and I'll find my frame and I'll take five pictures, basically, and I'll go home and I'll start sketching in my notebook.
• 16:14
  Doron Gild: So I sketch the people in my notebook and then I photograph it.
• 16:19
  Doron Gild: I want to show you, let me see if I can show you.
• 16:24
  Doron Gild: I'll sketch them in my notebook, for example, like literally like little people doing random shit, and then I'll put it into Photoshop, cut it all out and put it into the frame that I've already photographed.
• 16:44
  Doron Gild: So by the time that the client sees it, it's already like this is what we're going to make.
• 16:49
  Doron Gild: So the plan is so.
• 16:51
  Doron Gild: This is like I would say, two weeks in, after I've already gone back and re-photographed and sketched and all this stuff, but two weeks into the process they can see the ideas, they approve the ideas and they like where my brain's going.
• 17:06
  Doron Gild: Then we start producing them, where it's putting a team together, hair and makeup, clothes, props, anything that I would need.
• 17:15
  Doron Gild: The crazier they let me go, the more expensive it gets.
• 17:23
  Matt Jacob: What a wonderful cultivating process to really start from the ground up, and it's such a niche kind of like thing, like who fucking does this for families?
• 17:33
  Doron Gild: Literally I produce it like I would produce an ad job and I spend no expense, like mentally or time-wise, I really spend like a solid month on every client.
• 17:47
  Matt Jacob: Where did this process come from?
• 17:48
  Matt Jacob: Was it a feeling-out process that was innate and kind of organic to you, or did you see someone do something very similar and go?
• 17:55
  Matt Jacob: I love the way that's.
• 17:58
  Doron Gild: No, it's not something that I've saw anywhere, but I think that the circumstances kept driving it into more and more like the sketching part I'm like okay, I have to tell them what I'm thinking I can't just well, I can show them what I'm thinking instead of just telling them, because they don't know that I'm capable and or like.
• 18:16
  Doron Gild: Sometimes the ideas are really wacky, like or visually like I can.
• 18:20
  Doron Gild: I can explain it visually, but you don't really have to understand what it is conceptually yet.
• 18:24
  Doron Gild: So it's.
• 18:25
  Doron Gild: I think, that it's just out of necessity and out of the need for the clients to trust me and out of the need for the clients to be impressed by the process in order to justify the fact that I'm charging them an hour.
• 18:43
  Doron Gild: You know, then it is.
• 18:44
  Doron Gild: I'm spending time like, beyond the physical shooting the day of, beyond the post-production, beyond all that stuff, I spend a good solid two weeks of physical working, working on any, on any given client.
• 18:57
  Doron Gild: So it's worth it and it's expensive what are the clients, um, looking for?
• 19:03
  Matt Jacob: I mean, obviously, before you kind of get a job, before they hire you, they would see your work and see what you've done before.
• 19:12
  Matt Jacob: So what?
• 19:15
  Matt Jacob: I always loved about.
• 19:18
  Doron Gild: so I've had shows and the shows, to me, have never been oh, let's sell pictures off the wall.
• 19:23
  Doron Gild: It's more of a showcase.
• 19:24
  Doron Gild: So people would come and they would see the work and they go.
• 19:27
  Doron Gild: Oh, my God, I love this, I want one of my own.
• 19:29
  Doron Gild: And I'm like, okay, let's make some.
• 19:32
  Doron Gild: And as a bonus you don't just get one, you get five.
• 19:36
  Doron Gild: So we go and we make five pictures during the day of shooting and they get the art piece and it's not somebody else's family on the wall, it's theirs.
• 19:46
  Doron Gild: So it comes from a an artist's perspective.
• 19:52
  Matt Jacob: If you're making five, or even if you're just making one.
• 19:55
  Matt Jacob: How important is the narrative or how much time do you spend, you know, working on the narrative and the storytelling?
• 20:02
  Matt Jacob: Is that really what clients love and what differentiates you from from others, or is it more the aesthetic that they they enjoy?
• 20:09
  Doron Gild: I think that they love the aesthetic and that's such an easy thing to grab onto because it's really pretty, it's very vibrant, everybody looks really beautiful.
• 20:19
  Doron Gild: I make sure that nobody's like not the best they can look, and then on top that, like it's.
• 20:25
  Doron Gild: These people are doing weird shit that they wouldn't do but they can relate to.
• 20:30
  Doron Gild: Like these aren't such far fetched ideas, but I find a way to make them like way, way out there.
• 20:36
  Doron Gild: So these are skiing people, these are, these are gardeners, these are Dutch people.
• 20:40
  Doron Gild: Like it's all, like it all comes into the idea of who they are.
• 20:45
  Doron Gild: But I just go and I nudge it as far as I can to the absurd so we can all make work together and then it's like a fun adventure because it's not normal for them, but they know we're talking about them.
• 20:56
  Doron Gild: You know what I mean.
• 20:57
  Doron Gild: So I'm not just walking up and being like, oh, let's find this little spot.
• 21:01
  Doron Gild: We're intentionally talking about them, intentionally making work about them, and then it becomes a piece that they can hang on the wall and not only do they have a memory of the day, but if somebody thought about us and put it on the wall, you know what I mean.
• 21:16
  Matt Jacob: how do you then yeah, I'm trying to kind of get an idea how you imbue meaning if in, even if that's a thing or not a thing, because you're essentially making it for other people, but also for yourself, and there has to be, it has to be more layered than and people hire you because they're more layered than just a headshot or a family portrait, right?
• 21:40
  Matt Jacob: How do you imbue that, those layers in both technically but also metaphorically, in your images?
• 21:47
  Doron Gild: well, I think that because I'm making my work for somebody else, because, like, obviously, like I'm not hanging these pictures up on my wall, but I, but I get to experience, like, photography to me is this act of making, you know, and the act of thinking, and the act of creating and the act of showing, for sure, like, obviously, we're making this for people to see.
• 22:10
  Doron Gild: So this is my work, which I then I'm making for somebody else.
• 22:15
  Doron Gild: So that's why it's so much fun, because they really let me loose, and they let me loose when, in relation to them, like, if something's not right, they're not going to be.
• 22:27
  Doron Gild: Okay, let's make this picture.
• 22:28
  Doron Gild: Like they have plenty of time to decide whether or not the work is or the ideas relate to them, whether they want to be in that circumstance and want to be in that situation.
• 22:38
  Doron Gild: Then I give them the breathing space.
• 22:41
  Doron Gild: But once it's decided, we're all in, literally, we're going to get different clothes, we're going to do all this stuff, we're going to have to shop, we're going to do all these things.
• 22:51
  Doron Gild: The kids have to fucking get all in line and understand, which is a great thing to have the sketches for, because the kids are like, oh, this is what I'm going to be doing.
• 23:01
  Doron Gild: It's always like acting for them right know, but it's always like acting for them, right, yeah, and it's, and it's really like I think that's also something that has to do with the type of people who hire me is that it's they're performative and they want to be documented in that way.
• 23:14
  Doron Gild: You know what I mean.
• 23:15
  Doron Gild: They want to be out like I I don't I won't do this with celebrities because they're like I'm not working right now.
• 23:21
  Doron Gild: This is not okay.
• 23:21
  Doron Gild: Forget this.
• 23:22
  Doron Gild: I don't see it happening with celebrities on that level, as opposed to John and Dorothea, for example.
• 23:29
  Doron Gild: But that was because.
• 23:32
  Doron Gild: So John and Dorothea came out of.
• 23:34
  Doron Gild: First of all, this is when I was first starting the business.
• 23:37
  Doron Gild: As far as the family stuff and they have which I'm not sure I'm allowed to talk about, but it's not really.
• 23:43
  Doron Gild: It's kind of innocuous they have a wall in their New Jersey house which is lined with black and white 8x10s and it's a photograph of the kids, of their family, and each one is made by a different photographer, from like Herb Ritz to Annie Leibovitz, to everybody.
• 24:02
  Doron Gild: It's a huge line of pictures, and everybody who photographs John that he likes, he asks them to come back and make a Herb Ritz style photograph.
• 24:11
  Doron Gild: Okay, because Herb Ritz was the first person to photograph the babies and so it was a kind of a whole big thing.
• 24:19
  Doron Gild: So it's their Herb Ritz wall and I came in and I did this thing and I but I said to him, look, I'm not going to bring the whole shebang just to make the one picture.
• 24:30
  Doron Gild: Let's do more family stuff.
• 24:30
  Doron Gild: And he's like sure.
• 24:31
  Doron Gild: So we went and we made five pictures and we recreated a picture that they made with, and then I elaborated on it, we did a car picture, but it all came down to the picture of the kids that they hung on the wall, on the Herbert Herbert's wall, which is so flattering.
• 24:45
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, that must be very, very flattering.
• 24:48
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, do you do much celebrity work now Only when hired and is hiring?
• 24:55
  Matt Jacob: I mean, tell me about the commercial side of what you do and the challenges I'm sure are.
• 25:03
  Doron Gild: Terrifying.
• 25:04
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 25:06
  Matt Jacob: And even with the experience that you have and the challenges that you still have today, even with the changes that are going on in the industry as much as just you being a photographer- yeah, it's nonstop.
• 25:19
  Doron Gild: It's like there's never been a place where I'm like, oh, I'm okay now.
• 25:22
  Doron Gild: It's always been like a fight to get to what's going on.
• 25:26
  Doron Gild: I have an agent and now I'm a part of an agency, like there's a whole.
• 25:30
  Doron Gild: The more I can get the word out, the better.
• 25:32
  Doron Gild: I just put a huge portfolio together, like full printed portfolio that I haven't for like years.
• 25:39
  Doron Gild: But I want to bring it back to what it used to be, because it's hard to get the jobs, because everybody's out and everybody's looking and there's so many of us and there's so many ways to get to where you're going now and now, fucking ai not that I'm worried about that as far as this type of work, but a lot, of, a lot of the other facets of work have gone like I don't do still life anymore, because why?
• 26:01
  Doron Gild: Ai can do it just as well and better.
• 26:04
  Doron Gild: I mean, it's all out there already.
• 26:06
  Doron Gild: But I think that the struggle is always.
• 26:10
  Doron Gild: I always feel like, okay, this job is going to be the one that's going to make it roll through and it's going to be fine now and it works and it's great.
• 26:20
  Doron Gild: And then I'm like where's the next one?
• 26:22
  Doron Gild: And you have to make a living, you have to like pay bills.
• 26:27
  Doron Gild: Thank god, my wife is amazing, so she definitely takes care of us.
• 26:31
  Doron Gild: But it's hard as a creative, as an artist, as a and that specifically, my type of work is not for everybody and it's not something that I can just get up and do.
• 26:42
  Doron Gild: I can't be like, oh, let's go make a picture.
• 26:44
  Doron Gild: Yeah, it's not something that I can just get up and do.
• 26:47
  Doron Gild: I can't be like, oh, let's go make a picture.
• 26:48
  Doron Gild: It's a process and it's expensive and it's assistance and it's gear.
• 26:52
  Doron Gild: I've gotten to the place where I'm like, fuck, what have I done?
• 26:57
  Doron Gild: But I grew up wanting to make the big pictures.
• 26:59
  Doron Gild: I grew up wanting to make the pictures that blew my brain away when I was looking at them.
• 27:04
  Doron Gild: So that's what I'm trying to do and I'm paying for it.
• 27:10
  Matt Jacob: How many times have you given up or thought about giving up?
• 27:16
  Doron Gild: I have never.
• 27:17
  Doron Gild: But I've been asked to what?
• 27:18
  Doron Gild: Really?
• 27:19
  Doron Gild: Yeah, because if you're a family, if you've got kids, you've got stuff.
• 27:21
  Doron Gild: You've got to figure it out.
• 27:22
  Doron Gild: You know, I thought you got to figure it out, you know.
• 27:27
  Matt Jacob: I thought you meant on a commercial level.
• 27:29
  Matt Jacob: Oh, no, no, no, no.
• 27:30
  Doron Gild: People, everybody works with me, it's fun, Like, but we need more of them.
• 27:34
  Doron Gild: I think it really comes down to luck, perseverance, talent and just plain security, because who would do this to themselves?
• 27:49
  Doron Gild: Who would get to the point?
• 27:51
  Doron Gild: Who does this?
• 27:53
  Matt Jacob: Wait, we're trying to inspire a generation of photographers.
• 27:56
  Matt Jacob: Come on, fantastic.
• 27:59
  Doron Gild: I'll teach you how to make pictures.
• 28:01
  Doron Gild: Let's do this, I love it.
• 28:02
  Doron Gild: I'll bring you to my sets and we'll do the best we can, but it's fucking hard.
• 28:07
  Doron Gild: I keep remembering a lecture at the School of Visual Arts and one of my professors saying 10% of you are going to be photographers, 1% of you are going to make money making photography.
• 28:22
  Doron Gild: And we're talking to like 100 people in a room, which means that one of us is going to do it when it's all said and done, and this is like coming from a really well-known agent.
• 28:33
  Doron Gild: This is real and it's not untrue, because when I look at the people around us at the time, some of them are doing their best, some of them are not.
• 28:45
  Doron Gild: Some of them are curators now.
• 28:49
  Doron Gild: Some of them are art directors now.
• 28:50
  Doron Gild: Some of them are massage therapists now.
• 28:52
  Doron Gild: Like it doesn't, like it was the experience, and that's that I can't.
• 28:58
  Doron Gild: Well, what can I say?
• 29:01
  Doron Gild: I love it, and that's that I can't.
• 29:02
  Doron Gild: Well, what can I say?
• 29:03
  Doron Gild: I love it.
• 29:05
  Doron Gild: I don't know how to do anything else.
• 29:08
  Doron Gild: I don't want to do anything else, but it's fucking difficult and it's going to be difficult forever.
• 29:16
  Doron Gild: Like I'm not retiring.
• 29:17
  Doron Gild: There's nothing to retire from.
• 29:19
  Doron Gild: I love my life.
• 29:19
  Doron Gild: But it's like it's hard.
• 29:23
  Doron Gild: I you know you gotta and even with the making of the photographs is hard when it's all said and done like I don't just go around and snap away.
• 29:31
  Doron Gild: I don't just, it's not, it's not the way I do things.
• 29:34
  Doron Gild: So maybe it's just the path specifically that I've taken.
• 29:40
  Matt Jacob: I'll encourage anybody to make pictures, but yeah, it's easy to make pictures that you think will be popular.
• 29:46
  Matt Jacob: Well, it's not easy, but it's easier.
• 29:47
  Matt Jacob: You know it's.
• 29:48
  Matt Jacob: You know, look at social media, it's.
• 29:50
  Matt Jacob: Every, every other photo is exactly the same.
• 29:53
  Matt Jacob: Um, people, people, it depends what your intent is, depends what your goals are.
• 29:57
  Matt Jacob: Right, it's?
• 29:57
  Matt Jacob: It's so challenging to you know, I'm super inspired by the fact that you've just you're stubborn in a good way that you know, this is what I want to do.
• 30:08
  Matt Jacob: This is my style.
• 30:09
  Matt Jacob: If people don't like it, they don't like it.
• 30:10
  Matt Jacob: If people love it, then great, and I'll work with that niche.
• 30:14
  Matt Jacob: How have you had to evolve, though?
• 30:17
  Matt Jacob: Maybe not technically, but just maybe in a business sense or personally?
• 30:19
  Matt Jacob: How have you had to evolve, though?
• 30:19
  Matt Jacob: Maybe not technically, but just maybe in a business sense or personally?
• 30:21
  Matt Jacob: How have you had to evolve with those challenges over the last?
• 30:26
  Doron Gild: Actually, oddly enough, it is technically, because I guess, business-wise I learn every time and the agents are the best way to go about things.
• 30:36
  Doron Gild: But I have to learn how to think out of my own box and I have to learn how to make the work that not as not just for myself and commercial work, for example.
• 30:47
  Doron Gild: So you have to do it in the studio, you have to do it brighter, you have to do it with a smile, as in they have to be smiling.
• 30:55
  Doron Gild: So it's like they like the way I tell stories, so they'll hire me.
• 31:00
  Doron Gild: But they still need it to be bright and sunshiny and great.
• 31:05
  Doron Gild: But nobody's going to hire me to do a running in the field with a back leg and all that.
• 31:09
  Doron Gild: It's just not what they would hire me for.
• 31:11
  Doron Gild: But they still need it to feel good on a billboard.
• 31:15
  Doron Gild: So it needs to be bright and acceptable.
• 31:19
  Doron Gild: I always saw myself as the person who would do all the movie posters.
• 31:24
  Doron Gild: That was the ambition for a long time.
• 31:26
  Doron Gild: But it was such a tough place to crack, considering there are like eight people who do it fantastically well and it's like the ladder in there is more difficult than I can deal with, I guess, but it's not something that I don't want to be doing.
• 31:50
  Matt Jacob: What type of photography do you think is gone or going then, because of AI?
• 31:53
  Matt Jacob: I mean, I think movie posters is.
• 31:56
  Matt Jacob: I mean, that's going to be replaced by some point.
• 32:02
  Doron Gild: Yeah, I think certain aspects of it will definitely be replaced.
• 32:06
  Doron Gild: The portrait side of it won't.
• 32:07
  Doron Gild: You'll still be making those pictures.
• 32:09
  Doron Gild: They'll just do it in a studio with backgrounds or whatever.
• 32:12
  Doron Gild: Especially now that they can do all the digital backgrounds in studio.
• 32:16
  Doron Gild: I think that still life is going.
• 32:18
  Doron Gild: There's no reason to hire somebody to do these crazy moves anymore or splashes anymore.
• 32:24
  Doron Gild: That's all so easy with AI now, because once there's information on the internet that has that picture there, that's it.
• 32:32
  Doron Gild: It's possible to make.
• 32:33
  Doron Gild: So that's why the portrait side of things won't get replaced.
• 32:39
  Doron Gild: I think it's not forever, but not for a while.
• 32:43
  Doron Gild: Then my stuff is like I can't even start describing it and everything is done in camera.
• 32:50
  Doron Gild: Obviously, I clean up skin and I do contrast and I add some color, but it's all right there, right there.
• 33:03
  Doron Gild: So to then bring ai into the idea of it doesn't seem like it's even like a challenge for me or or or concern for my work.
• 33:07
  Doron Gild: But it's as far as evolving and as far as you know what what I'm worried about?
• 33:12
  Doron Gild: I think I'm answering too many questions at once, um, but the evolution that I had to have to take and still have to take is, first of all, um, how to communicate with people that, um, don't understand where I'm coming from, slash, they, um, have a certain way of thinking and they have a certain way of doing things and they have to answer to certain people, so they can't really take the risks that they used to be taking, like art directors and art buyers used to be like, oh I love this guy's work, let's, let's go see what's going on, but if they fuck up, that's it, they're fired.
• 33:51
  Doron Gild: Now there's no, there's no space for it, so nobody takes any risks.
• 33:56
  Doron Gild: I suppose that, um, they don't need to take risks.
• 34:01
  Doron Gild: So if you do and you fuck up, you're done, because now you can find the person who would safely do this job or do it in a way where you can fix it later, so on and so forth.
• 34:14
  Doron Gild: But basically what I'm saying is that when I started, we were shooting on film, we weren't even shooting digital.
• 34:25
  Doron Gild: You have to trust us, you have to trust that you hired the right person.
• 34:30
  Doron Gild: You have to trust that we know what we're doing.
• 34:32
  Doron Gild: You have to trust it.
• 34:32
  Doron Gild: And now it's all there, it's all in front of you and there's no need to trust, there's no need to take a risk, because we can find somebody who can do it right already.
• 34:40
  Doron Gild: We don't need to trust.
• 34:40
  Doron Gild: There's no need to take a risk because it's we can find somebody who can do it right already.
• 34:42
  Doron Gild: We don't need to like start anybody off.
• 34:45
  Matt Jacob: We don't need to take any risk why can they find someone to do it right?
• 34:50
  Matt Jacob: Just because it's more accessible and there's more photographers and it's easier to learn, more more open to learning for people, everyone's got a camera, etc.
• 34:59
  Matt Jacob: Etc.
• 35:00
  Doron Gild: Or it's basically the fact that there are already, like the people who have been doing more open to learning for people, everyone's got a camera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 35:04
  Doron Gild: Or it's basically the fact that there are already the people who have been doing it for years and years and years and slowly but surely they'll get replaced, but the process is decades Like.
• 35:13
  Doron Gild: Stephen Klein is still Stephen Klein.
• 35:15
  Doron Gild: Nobody's taking his space.
• 35:17
  Doron Gild: Yet.
• 35:17
  Doron Gild: Andy Lee Woods is still doing the work, selig is still doing the work, lee Woods is still doing the work, selig is still doing the work, joey L is still doing the work, but he's choosing to to go in different directions.
• 35:27
  Doron Gild: You know what I mean.
• 35:27
  Doron Gild: Like everybody, there's like a consistent, like pouch of people that are doing the work, and there's no reason to not have Art Shriver do the job as opposed to letting me do it.
• 35:39
  Doron Gild: Why?
• 35:46
  Matt Jacob: You mentioned Joey L, who's a big inspiration of mine.
• 35:48
  Matt Jacob: What is he up to these days?
• 35:50
  Matt Jacob: I haven't seen much of him.
• 35:51
  Matt Jacob: I know he loves his Twitter and his NFTs, but do you see much?
• 35:59
  Doron Gild: No, I think that we were in the same agency for a while and he was doing all the you know, the Always Sunny in Philadelphia and he was doing all these movie things.
• 36:08
  Doron Gild: But I think then concentrating on his like on the Africa book, which was beautiful, and on the idea of projects and what it can do and where it can go with it.
• 36:18
  Doron Gild: But it's, I mean, I think his work is wonderful.
• 36:21
  Doron Gild: I remember looking at the work in the very beginning and being like what the fuck?
• 36:25
  Doron Gild: Like he's making the work I wanted to make, but he's making it in Africa and it's fucking beautiful, what the fuck.
• 36:31
  Doron Gild: I remember being stunned by it and he was younger than me.
• 36:36
  Matt Jacob: He started when he was doing commercial photography, when he was 17,.
• 36:39
  Matt Jacob: 18, wasn't he?
• 36:40
  Matt Jacob: I mean, just insane.
• 36:41
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, what a dick.
• 36:43
  Matt Jacob: I love him?
• 36:46
  Matt Jacob: No for sure.
• 36:48
  Doron Gild: We had the same agent for a while and I'm like, oh, I want to do all these movie posters and stuff like that.
• 36:53
  Doron Gild: And he goes well, joey's here, I can't give you his work.
• 36:57
  Doron Gild: I'm like, there it is, oh yeah, like here, I can't give you his work".
• 37:04
  Doron Gild: I'm like, there it is, oh yeah, straight up.
• 37:05
  Doron Gild: He's like we'll work and we'll get you stuff.
• 37:06
  Doron Gild: It's great.
• 37:06
  Doron Gild: But you can't do that one because we already have somebody for that.
• 37:08
  Doron Gild: And this is a big agency.
• 37:11
  Doron Gild: This wasn't a toy agency.
• 37:17
  Matt Jacob: You touched upon communication and I want to kind of dive into some at least some advice or some lessons that you've learned and how to communicate on both sides of the job.
• 37:29
  Matt Jacob: You know one on business agency clients but one on you know the subjects and the people that you're taking photographs of.
• 37:38
  Matt Jacob: Are there any kind of like lessons that you've really learned on how to not manipulate but how to like appease certain people and communicate effectively in order to a get a job or to be a good client and vice versa, when you're on set or when you're making these pictures over the course of a few weeks?
• 37:57
  Doron Gild: Yeah, I think that the client side of things and the people that I photograph, I, I, I just we just get along.
• 38:04
  Doron Gild: It's it's like almost an automatic thing.
• 38:07
  Doron Gild: I'm a little humorous, I'm, you know, I'm a little goofy.
• 38:10
  Doron Gild: It's fun, it's fun to be around me.
• 38:13
  Doron Gild: I'm like very exuberant when, especially when it comes to onset and my when I have ideas, and it's like really, really exciting.
• 38:19
  Doron Gild: So, the client side of things and communicating with people, that one I got I love it and it's part of the reason why I make the work, because I love people and I love learning about people, love conversations.
• 38:32
  Doron Gild: The business side I've always been lost.
• 38:35
  Doron Gild: I've always tried to just be myself and try to just speak my truth and sometimes it works and sometimes it's too much and sometimes it's completely off the rails.
• 38:46
  Doron Gild: As far as well, we're business people.
• 38:48
  Doron Gild: This is pharma.
• 38:49
  Doron Gild: What are you talking about?
• 38:50
  Doron Gild: So, like I think that the experiences are individual and I think that the experiences are specific to any job that I've ever had, except for the family portraits and for my personal stuff, like the any job that I've ever had, except for the family portraits and for my personal stuff, like the personal portraits that I used to do, which was easier to make.
• 39:06
  Doron Gild: It was always like I just want to spend time with you, let's do this, let's figure it out, let's get to know each other, and then I can make the right pictures.
• 39:15
  Doron Gild: And it's great because hopefully they want to spend time with me too.
• 39:18
  Doron Gild: So it works, and it's great because hopefully they want to spend time with me too.
• 39:21
  Matt Jacob: So it works.
• 39:22
  Matt Jacob: So if we're talking to a third party here who wants to do what you do, give me some distilled version of that, Like a couple of tips Empathy or try and listen more.
• 39:32
  Matt Jacob: Spend time with your subjects.
• 39:36
  Doron Gild: Always listen, always empathy, always time.
• 39:41
  Doron Gild: But I don't even know if any of that is going to make a difference between the fact that you just have to communicate and you have to want to be there.
• 39:51
  Doron Gild: You have to want to be next to this person, you have to want to experience these people, otherwise it comes across as fake and it doesn't work.
• 40:02
  Doron Gild: But beyond, like I can't like, how do you explain how you communicate with people Like?
• 40:08
  Doron Gild: To me, it's, it's always just been me being enthusiastic about the moment and me understanding who I'm talking to, and it's not even a matter of like finding the thing to talk about.
• 40:21
  Doron Gild: It's it just always just works.
• 40:23
  Doron Gild: I just find people interesting.
• 40:27
  Matt Jacob: And you found that relatively easy from day one, or you feel like you've grown into that and now it's so natural to you.
• 40:34
  Doron Gild: I think I've grown into being an adult and a human, you know.
• 40:38
  Doron Gild: No, I mean, I know that my work has matured, with me maturing, and it's slowed down, with me slowing down and my ego going away and all that, all the little bits and pieces, for sure, as a, as an adult, but I've always wanted to be doing the same thing.
• 40:56
  Doron Gild: I suppose that it's just comes down to editing my thoughts and my work and my words and all it's.
• 41:03
  Doron Gild: I really I guess it's just growing up, when it's all said and done, the work itself.
• 41:08
  Doron Gild: I feel like I can look at back at photographs that I've made and now don't like.
• 41:14
  Doron Gild: I even like it takes me time to.
• 41:16
  Doron Gild: I go into phases of liking my work, not liking my work, liking specific pictures, but I can still look back and be like, oh, I wasn't even there, I wasn't paying attention.
• 41:26
  Doron Gild: This is not the right thing.
• 41:27
  Doron Gild: That's why the picture didn't work.
• 41:28
  Doron Gild: And if it's like there's some commercial work or editorial work that I go in and I don't like the people that I'm photographing, you could fucking see it in the work for sure.
• 41:38
  Doron Gild: You could fucking see it in the work for sure, which was the detriment to me as a, as a creative and as a commercial photographer, because I wasn't fully, you know, there as an artist, which was a problem but how do you get around that?
• 41:50
  Matt Jacob: if you even said, even this day, right if you, if you got a job tomorrow and you with a client that you don't really connect with, but they're obviously paying you your fees, how do you navigate around that?
• 42:03
  Matt Jacob: Well, you just don't really connect with, but they're obviously paying you your fees.
• 42:06
  Doron Gild: How do you navigate around that?
• 42:07
  Doron Gild: Or you just don't take the job.
• 42:07
  Doron Gild: Well, I can't afford to not take jobs nowadays, but I think that, when it comes down to it, it's the idea.
• 42:11
  Doron Gild: And if I have a certain idea, I go into a place where, first of all, let's make sure that they like the idea and it's fine and we can function with it.
• 42:21
  Doron Gild: But then I just make the work.
• 42:24
  Doron Gild: And I make the work because it's my work, not because it's a portrait anymore.
• 42:30
  Doron Gild: So I'm making a rectangle that looks pretty and the light's great and the action works and flows nicely and it works for them, but it won't go in my portfolio and it won't go anywhere where I can present it, so to speak, because it doesn't feel real or rich to me in that way.
• 42:48
  Doron Gild: And I can have pictures that didn't work physically but I, emotionally, am really attached to them, which I'll put it all over the place.
• 42:56
  Doron Gild: You know what I mean.
• 42:57
  Doron Gild: But I think that it really comes down to fucking deal with it now, and I didn't used to be able to do it, and that's maturity and that's ego, and that's all the stuff that you would expect an adult to deal with in a much more rational way.
• 43:18
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, you say being an adult, you know, inferring that actually you know, as an adult, you know yourself better.
• 43:24
  Matt Jacob: So you know your weaknesses, you know your strengths, you have a bit more awareness of the ego, the good and bad ego, what everything goes into.
• 43:33
  Matt Jacob: You know what's what you're identified with in terms of your thoughts all the time and being able to compartmentalize those right and and I think that just comes with with maturity, and some people reach it a little bit sooner than others.
• 43:47
  Matt Jacob: But I, I was listening to um, I kind of remember his name, but um, an artist, not a photographer and I I someone sent me this link an old japanese artist and I'm not doing him any service by not remembering his name, but he was adamant that all artists should work in a job in their twenties.
• 44:09
  Matt Jacob: Just go and be employed, learn what it's like to just work in a fucking job.
• 44:15
  Matt Jacob: Right Nowadays, you reach 18, 19 and you start social media and you go and you can do free jobs and this brand deal and this brand.
• 44:24
  Matt Jacob: You don't even have to be that good and before you know it, a couple of years later you're kind of earning your own money, which is great, obviously it's.
• 44:32
  Matt Jacob: Those opportunities are fantastic, but you don't know yourself, you can't create anything of meaning and you can't make the mistakes that you can't create anything of meaning and you, you, you can't make the mistakes that you can.
• 44:40
  Matt Jacob: And if you're being bossed around and you know making making mistakes off on someone else's dime, right, and then really giving yourself that time to mature and learn that In my in my world that that came from.
• 44:55
  Doron Gild: Well, I obviously had a excuse me a normal job at a camera store or a pizza shop or whatever the fuck it was, but I think that assisting was really vital for me, even though I was shooting and I was working while I was assisting at all the points the idea of how to deal with somebody else being in charge and just catering to somebody else and making sure that everything works.
• 45:22
  Doron Gild: Because, being the first assistant in New York City, you're fucking in charge, but you're not in charge, so the ego goes away.
• 45:29
  Doron Gild: You have to, otherwise you get fired, plain and simple.
• 45:33
  Doron Gild: Like this isn't your set, fuck off, you know.
• 45:37
  Doron Gild: But when it comes down to it, you're still learning how to manage a set.
• 45:40
  Doron Gild: You're still learning how to manage people, and then you learn how to be like okay, this is where my job ends and where the art of his or hers starts, you know.
• 45:51
  Doron Gild: So that's the humility and the and the understanding of what's okay for me came with about 15 years of working with fantastic photographers, artists and photographers, and I think that like, and then, once you start not doing that at all or not assisting anybody, you're in a world where you're like.
• 46:15
  Doron Gild: I have to make my own work now, and I have to be that boss again, and I have to teach the kids that are coming up on the other side in the same way so they can move on, do the same thing.
• 46:24
  Doron Gild: So my assistants are all wonderful and they all learn, and we have a fantastic time on set because it feels like we're all together and we're all learning.
• 46:33
  Matt Jacob: I'm the boss, though, now now, do you think we should all um try and be better artists as photographers?
• 46:48
  Matt Jacob: Do you think we should all, do you think we should all, try and pursue the artistry in photography?
• 46:51
  Matt Jacob: And if so, do you think you know, the world would be a more beautiful place if we, if we did?
• 46:56
  Doron Gild: being a creative now with being an artist.
• 46:58
  Doron Gild: Anything you do right now creatively is being an artist.
• 47:00
  Doron Gild: I think that if the art as expression and as far as what art means is there, people will take it more seriously and more people will pay attention.
• 47:11
  Doron Gild: I don't think you have a choice Like you chose as a photographer, or at least as a creative photographer, not necessarily a can't even.
• 47:20
  Doron Gild: There is no other thing 's.
• 47:22
  Doron Gild: It's an art form.
• 47:23
  Doron Gild: You choose to do it commercially, you choose to do it artistically.
• 47:27
  Doron Gild: If you don't put yourself into it, it's not going to work.
• 47:30
  Doron Gild: And that's where art comes in, no matter how what you're doing, but still it's still going to do it.
• 47:35
  Doron Gild: So, like you, traveling and making photographs, you, you find a way to make a difference in people other people do.
• 47:44
  Doron Gild: That's where the art, your art form, comes in.
• 47:46
  Doron Gild: Within the, the parameters of where you are in the story, you're telling, like you do things that are not normal and on a, I'm going to go travel and meet these people and take pictures of these people.
• 47:58
  Doron Gild: You, you wait for the right moment.
• 48:00
  Doron Gild: You find the right people, you find the right.
• 48:02
  Doron Gild: It feels like you're looking for the right tribe, almost in a weird way, and then you find a way to make the light sing, make the light move, your pictures move, which is really fascinating and really beautiful.
• 48:12
  Doron Gild: To make pictures like in a space that's not in your control and still you have full control, which is quite impressive actually Thank you.
• 48:23
  Matt Jacob: That was very kind.
• 48:24
  Matt Jacob: What do we say then to those photographers?
• 48:29
  Matt Jacob: I get a lot of people coming back.
• 48:30
  Matt Jacob: I like to talk about philosophy and meaning and layers and the intention behind photography, rather than just the technical side of things, which is obviously we all want to pay attention to that.
• 48:43
  Matt Jacob: But a lot of people say I just want to fucking take photos.
• 48:45
  Matt Jacob: I don't care about the meaning, I don't care about the storytelling, I just want to take photos.
• 48:53
  Doron Gild: Well, I think that it comes down to there is no big fucking pile of photographs that you could just take them from.
• 48:57
  Doron Gild: You have to make them, you have to create them.
• 48:59
  Doron Gild: There has to be a process, there has to be an intention, there has to be a will to go and pursue, there has to be something that you are passionate about in order to make work, and that's what it is making work like.
• 49:13
  Doron Gild: If you're, if your body of work is only, you know, coca-cola cans that are pouring into like that, it'll kill you, that'll drive you nuts.
• 49:24
  Doron Gild: You won't be satisfied.
• 49:26
  Doron Gild: Granted, you might be rich, but you won't be satisfied.
• 49:29
  Doron Gild: And there's no way.
• 49:29
  Doron Gild: That's the only thing you're doing.
• 49:30
  Doron Gild: And if you want to show the other stuff that you're doing, it's fine.
• 49:33
  Doron Gild: Like it's there's.
• 49:35
  Doron Gild: As a creative, as an, as an artist, it's really vital to like make things that make you want to fucking make them.
• 49:41
  Doron Gild: I can't even think about any other way to tell a person that if you're going to be an artist, make art.
• 49:49
  Doron Gild: You know, you can't just sit there and be like oh, this looks cute and I'm going to figure out how to, how to take this picture.
• 49:57
  Doron Gild: That doesn't mean anything.
• 49:59
  Doron Gild: It doesn't mean anything.
• 50:01
  Doron Gild: I mean, at a certain point, when you're young and you're trying to figure it out and trying to learn how to make this light do that and that light do that.
• 50:10
  Doron Gild: Yeah, you're learning.
• 50:11
  Doron Gild: But again, assisting is fantastic and you can learn from masters, masters.
• 50:18
  Matt Jacob: Who are your biggest inspirations, or who have been your biggest inspirations and who are today?
• 50:23
  Doron Gild: Well, I think that the work clearly speaks of Gregory Crookson and Leibowitz and Seliger.
• 50:30
  Doron Gild: I spent two wonderful summers working with Seliger between my first year in college and second, and then third and fourth, and every time I walked into that studio I was in awe and I learned so much just by like standing there, forget running around, forget four o'clock in the morning, doesn't fucking matter, it was incredible.
• 50:51
  Doron Gild: And then I think that, like I've always tried to figure out a way to I don't want to say make the same work as as Crutzen does, but the reality is, if I could have that kind of money to make those kind of pictures, it would be amazing.
• 51:08
  Doron Gild: $250,000 on an image, why not close down a town?
• 51:15
  Doron Gild: Let's do this.
• 51:16
  Doron Gild: Oh my god, in the very beginning when he made Twilight, that's what it was, that's what it cost every fucking photo.
• 51:22
  Doron Gild: But it was like that around the board, across the board, sorry, like when glenn was making his work for like vogue or for for anybody.
• 51:31
  Doron Gild: The productions were massive and there was no expense spared at all.
• 51:37
  Doron Gild: There was so much money being flown anywhere that they could make any picture they wanted, which is fantastic.
• 51:44
  Doron Gild: Can you imagine?
• 51:45
  Doron Gild: Go do what you want.
• 51:47
  Doron Gild: Sure, it's unbelievable.
• 51:51
  Matt Jacob: Yep, now it's just do it in a studio and fill in the rest with software.
• 51:56
  Doron Gild: Or figure out how to fucking make somebody pay for it, and that's literally what I've been trying to do.
• 52:01
  Doron Gild: Somebody's got to pay for me to get my assistance, to grab my gear, to help me make these pictures, and I have fun doing it and people get lots out of it, so it's not like they're not getting what they're paying for, but I'm certainly making sure that I can make work with them making.
• 52:19
  Doron Gild: It's the way it is.
• 52:21
  Doron Gild: What are you going to do?
• 52:21
  Doron Gild: Like that's the hustle?
• 52:24
  Matt Jacob: yeah, that's the hustle, um people, people, if they don't realize that before they start, they soon realize it when they get in and it's it's never ending.
• 52:32
  Doron Gild: It's important to try and enjoy that hustle, right, try and enjoy that process and just live in it, or at least have those moments within the hustle that make it worthwhile which, to me, is being on set, which, to me, is finishing the work, which, to me, is seeing the print, which, to me, is seeing it on the wall.
• 52:48
  Doron Gild: There's these little moments that they're like there's so much fun and they're so uplifting.
• 52:53
  Doron Gild: It's like, oh, this is the feeling, that's it, that's it, that's what keeps you going.
• 52:59
  Doron Gild: Oh, my God, I'm getting shivers now Just thinking about the notion of like I just put a book together.
• 53:05
  Doron Gild: Seeing all the work printed is so much fun and it's so, so like, oh, this is, this is what I'm doing.
• 53:12
  Doron Gild: It weighs like 40 pounds, you know it's.
• 53:15
  Doron Gild: It feels happy and I'm a happy person.
• 53:22
  Matt Jacob: I can tell, do you think we've lost our way in the traditional forms of photography and we're kind of going back to books and prints and film and those more tangible, emotion filled feelings with photography?
• 53:42
  Doron Gild: with photography.
• 53:43
  Doron Gild: I absolutely think that we've lost it and I think that we're going back to it.
• 53:46
  Doron Gild: I'm talking to my agents now.
• 53:48
  Doron Gild: In the last three weeks a month I decided to do a new book and I'm like not like a published book, like a portfolio book, and I'm like I want to get this in front of people.
• 53:59
  Doron Gild: I want to have meetings.
• 54:00
  Doron Gild: And they're like nobody has meetings anymore.
• 54:02
  Doron Gild: I'm like, no, no, no, no.
• 54:03
  Doron Gild: People would love to have meetings.
• 54:05
  Doron Gild: Let's just make sure they understand that the meeting is going to be me in front of them with a big ass fucking book and we're going to chit chat for an hour and a half.
• 54:12
  Doron Gild: Maybe we'll you know, like what we're talking about.
• 54:16
  Doron Gild: Maybe you'll be like, oh, see you later, never see you again.
• 54:18
  Doron Gild: But to have somebody in front of you and to show them work that you've been slaving over and you can feel it in the book and you can see the passion, you can see the effort, they'll enjoy it, even if it's just an hour off their day.
• 54:33
  Doron Gild: Think about it.
• 54:33
  Doron Gild: A lot of these people are going oh, let's have a meeting and look at fucking pictures for an hour and a half.
• 54:37
  Doron Gild: It's like, why not?
• 54:38
  Doron Gild: So I'm like no, we can't accept this.
• 54:42
  Doron Gild: If we can't get meetings anymore, let's do it Before the pandemic.
• 54:47
  Doron Gild: If my agent wanted to get meetings, I would schedule a week let's go to meetings and we would do like three meetings a day.
• 54:53
  Doron Gild: Wherever the fuck I was.
• 54:55
  Doron Gild: Why isn't that possible anymore?
• 54:57
  Doron Gild: One meeting a day fine, somebody wants to spend time either with me or with my work?
• 55:04
  Matt Jacob: Let's find them?
• 55:04
  Matt Jacob: Is that because our attention spans generally, both personally but on a commercial sense?
• 55:10
  Matt Jacob: I would just need a quick five minutes here and a quick five minutes there, and it's almost like the physical version or the literal version of scrolling.
• 55:18
  Doron Gild: No, they think they know you already from seeing your website and your Instagram.
• 55:22
  Doron Gild: It's absolutely social media.
• 55:24
  Doron Gild: It's absolutely the right now, right now.
• 55:26
  Doron Gild: Right now, right now.
• 55:27
  Doron Gild: Let's find it.
• 55:28
  Doron Gild: Let's go.
• 55:28
  Doron Gild: I see an egg in a hand.
• 55:32
  Doron Gild: That's what I want.
• 55:32
  Doron Gild: Let's do it.
• 55:33
  Doron Gild: And it loses the personal side of things, it loses the art side of things and, realistically, like this is the fun part of our work.
• 55:46
  Doron Gild: It's like let's meet people and let's make work together.
• 55:49
  Doron Gild: Let's make work together.
• 55:52
  Matt Jacob: True forms of collaboration.
• 55:54
  Doron Gild: Yeah, the collaboration is wonderful and it's like what commercial work used to be.
• 55:58
  Doron Gild: Let's bring this guy to bring his ideas.
• 56:01
  Doron Gild: The only big commercial work I've ever had was we're doing this.
• 56:05
  Doron Gild: It's for diabetes, let's say, and this is the story, what do you think I'm like?
• 56:11
  Doron Gild: Okay, this is what I need.
• 56:14
  Doron Gild: This is where we're going to shoot it.
• 56:15
  Doron Gild: These are the people that are going to be in it, because they want my input, they want my work to represent them.
• 56:21
  Doron Gild: That's the whole point.
• 56:22
  Doron Gild: Why hire me?
• 56:23
  Doron Gild: If you want somebody else's work, why hire me?
• 56:25
  Doron Gild: If you want somebody else's work, why hire me?
• 56:26
  Doron Gild: If you want to make the same pictures that are in your head, you want me to come up with something, let's do it.
• 56:31
  Doron Gild: Let's have fun doing it.
• 56:33
  Doron Gild: So if you're sitting in front of a creative director and they have like six jobs that they're thinking about and you have something that's going to relate to one of them, that's it.
• 56:46
  Doron Gild: That's where the work, work starts.
• 56:47
  Doron Gild: But if you don't fucking sit in front of them, they'll never remember anything.
• 56:49
  Doron Gild: All these people get sent hundreds, hundreds of emails a day with thousands of photographs and they don't know any photographers because, like they don't even pay attention anymore.
• 57:01
  Doron Gild: But if you're an agent or an agency send the work, sit in front of somebody.
• 57:07
  Doron Gild: Let's do this, and I think it's going to work Now.
• 57:11
  Matt Jacob: it's a digitized ecosystem, right, and it's social media driven.
• 57:14
  Matt Jacob: And do you pay much attention to social media and how do you see that kind of impacting?
• 57:21
  Doron Gild: It feels like I'm living it.
• 57:24
  Doron Gild: It's horrible.
• 57:24
  Doron Gild: I'm trying to crack the algorithm, trying to crack this understanding.
• 57:29
  Doron Gild: I've been on Instagram since it started.
• 57:31
  Doron Gild: Basically, I've had what?
• 57:33
  Doron Gild: 9,000 followers.
• 57:35
  Doron Gild: I don't even know how people you have 200,000 followers on Instagram.
• 57:40
  Doron Gild: I have no idea how to crack that code.
• 57:42
  Doron Gild: All I know is I'm going to make pictures.
• 57:44
  Doron Gild: Hopefully people like them.
• 57:47
  Matt Jacob: Look, you know a lot of it's smoke and mirrors.
• 57:51
  Matt Jacob: You know, I'd say 50,000 of those are boosted posts from years ago, so essentially paid.
• 57:58
  Matt Jacob: I've never kind of bought followers, but yeah, it's a marketing.
• 58:02
  Matt Jacob: You know you've got to either, and I talk to people who ask me this all the time.
• 58:07
  Matt Jacob: It's a, it's a marketing.
• 58:07
  Matt Jacob: You know you've got to.
• 58:08
  Matt Jacob: You've got to either, and I talk to people who ask me this all the time.
• 58:09
  Matt Jacob: It's like really to grow, you've got to post five times a week.
• 58:12
  Matt Jacob: You've just got to you.
• 58:14
  Matt Jacob: Just, they just want, they want posts.
• 58:16
  Matt Jacob: Right, the algorithm is, yeah, it's very nuanced in this and this and this and this and this, but essentially you've just got to fucking post and you've got to do it consistently until the algorithm learns.
• 58:25
  Matt Jacob: Okay, you're real.
• 58:26
  Matt Jacob: Okay, you're really like consistently giving us content, which means it's going to just grab people for for longer, and then on top of that, you've got to give them money.
• 58:34
  Matt Jacob: I actually I as a photographer, anyway, as a photographer, you can't.
• 58:39
  Doron Gild: Yeah, you got to yeah, I certainly do the boostings and all the little stuff.
• 58:44
  Doron Gild: I don't make enough photographs in order to post every five days, unless we're talking about stories and little bits and pieces.
• 58:49
  Doron Gild: I don't like to put my you know my little snappies on.
• 58:53
  Doron Gild: I have 80,000 pictures on my phone but I'm not like that's not the work that I put on there.
• 58:58
  Doron Gild: You know what I mean.
• 59:00
  Matt Jacob: It's difficult when I know, yeah, me too, Like I barely make that right and so you have, like I.
• 59:05
  Matt Jacob: Unfortunately, the podcast saved me and that's what really grew my account.
• 59:09
  Matt Jacob: It's because I have so much content and I can post reels every day, clips as a photographer who didn't have the podcast.
• 59:16
  Matt Jacob: There's no way.
• 59:17
  Matt Jacob: You just can't do it unless you've got images every fucking day or you're willing to do reels outside of the images.
• 59:26
  Doron Gild: And I don't like to repeat myself, like to me it's like it's.
• 59:29
  Doron Gild: It's almost cheating if I have a picture on there twice like I don't want to do that.
• 59:34
  Doron Gild: I just want to put real like all the the work that I want to show, the work that I want to relate to, the work that I want people to relate to.
• 59:42
  Doron Gild: I think I don't mean to sound doom and gloom and, uh, I could see, I could feel it like this whole conversation.
• 59:51
  Doron Gild: I'm like, wow, he's going to fucking edit this shit.
• 59:52
  Doron Gild: I was like how is it going to work this?
• 59:54
  Doron Gild: I'm like a mess.
• 59:55
  Doron Gild: All my ADHD is everywhere.
• 59:57
  Doron Gild: I love it, I love, I love this job.
• 1:00:00
  Doron Gild: I really do.
• 1:00:01
  Doron Gild: I love making work.
• 1:00:02
  Doron Gild: I love being around artists.
• 1:00:05
  Doron Gild: I love being taken care of as a creative.
• 1:00:08
  Doron Gild: I moved to a town.
• 1:00:09
  Doron Gild: I left the city and I moved to a town upstate in the Hudson Valley, and the embrace that I got from the art community here has been unbelievable and inspirational and I can get emotional about it and that's why I love this.
• 1:00:25
  Doron Gild: It's because it feels like I'm a part of something that I've always wanted to be a part of and slash realize now that I've always been a part of it Like in New York.
• 1:00:35
  Doron Gild: I was fucking chasing this one thing, let's go, let's go.
• 1:00:37
  Doron Gild: And then I moved and I'm like oh fuck, I was already, I already had it.
• 1:00:41
  Doron Gild: It was, it was over there and I just brought it, brought it all with me.
• 1:00:47
  Doron Gild: It was.
• 1:00:48
  Doron Gild: Now I'm here and I'm doing my thing and I'm making my work, and I'm making better work than I've ever made and I love it good for you, like I, I know you're not coming across doom and gloom and what's important.
• 1:00:57
  Matt Jacob: Actually, I think and I'll try and usually it's me and me the kind of the realism in in any conversation but it's important that people understand that, a everyone's got their own journey through this and, b, if you want to go and fucking earn a living, a full-time living, as an artist, creative photographer, whatever you choose, it's hard work and it doesn't stop You've got to really want to do it and you've got to find a way to enjoy that process.
• 1:01:24
  Matt Jacob: And being part of something like you've just talked about is so important.
• 1:01:29
  Matt Jacob: Feeling is a sense of belonging and you don't have to be like I feel like everyone wants to be liked by everyone these days, which, as we know, is just impossible.
• 1:01:38
  Matt Jacob: Find what you love to do and just go and do it with everything that you've got and knowing that it's going to be challenging and with a little bit of luck you might fucking make something out of it.
• 1:01:50
  Matt Jacob: Right, but it's going to be difficult, that's okay.
• 1:01:54
  Doron Gild: I mean, think about the percentage of people who actually, well, now it's different.
• 1:01:57
  Doron Gild: I don't even know what's going on now with people making money off photography, but it used to be like nobody fucking makes it and maybe somebody slips to the cracks and does it, you know.
• 1:02:10
  Doron Gild: But now, like it's, it's possible to even like make rent fuck it, but rent and supermarket, do it.
• 1:02:17
  Doron Gild: Just work your ass off and make rent and supermarket, that's it.
• 1:02:20
  Doron Gild: Wait until you have kids and then fuck.
• 1:02:22
  Doron Gild: But the reality is is that it's not easy to be an artist.
• 1:02:27
  Doron Gild: I have, I have a 21 year old son and he is brilliant in everything he does.
• 1:02:34
  Doron Gild: He's brilliant, he's a great painter, he's a, he makes music, he does all these things.
• 1:02:38
  Doron Gild: And I say to him you can go and do that and it's going to be great.
• 1:02:42
  Doron Gild: But you've seen how my life has gone and you've seen how hard it's been to get to wherever I'm going or wherever I've gotten.
• 1:02:49
  Doron Gild: So you need to have a business degree and an art degree, just so you understand that this is not easy.
• 1:02:58
  Doron Gild: And as an artist only, you're going to fall into so many traps and eat so much cereal.
• 1:03:04
  Doron Gild: You're going to fucking go crazy.
• 1:03:05
  Doron Gild: Just learn the basics of life and then create from there.
• 1:03:11
  Doron Gild: But you know, 18 year olds aren't even going to school anymore.
• 1:03:15
  Doron Gild: They're like oh, I'm a photographer, I'm a videographer, I'm a content creator, I'm a YouTuber.
• 1:03:19
  Doron Gild: For fuck's sake, it's hard.
• 1:03:23
  Doron Gild: There aren't more than one, mr Beast.
• 1:03:25
  Doron Gild: For fuck's sake, it's hard.
• 1:03:26
  Doron Gild: There aren't more than one mr beast that's been here listening yeah, it's just apart from this podcast.
• 1:03:30
  Matt Jacob: Let's go yes yes, well, look, I.
• 1:03:36
  Matt Jacob: I hope you can replay this conversation to uh potential clients.
• 1:03:40
  Matt Jacob: That'd be good with your book.
• 1:03:41
  Matt Jacob: You can just get them to watch the podcast.
• 1:03:42
  Matt Jacob: This is who I am.
• 1:03:44
  Doron Gild: This is really difficult motherfuckers give me, give, me give me um, like I I gone no, I like I keep thinking about all the things that I've said and the speed in which I'm saying them and whether or not they made sense and how the fuck it's going to come across.
• 1:03:59
  Doron Gild: I don't know, like who cares, like this is like the reality of of who we are at any given time and it's hard and I can't lie and say that, look at, this has been like a piece of cake I feel it.
• 1:04:16
  Matt Jacob: I feel it, I appreciate your authenticity and and I know everyone listening will because they'll take solace in the fact okay, yeah, I'm.
• 1:04:23
  Matt Jacob: I'm finding it really difficult as well.
• 1:04:25
  Matt Jacob: I that there's not glad, but I feel more at peace that there's other people that are struggling as much as I am, and everyone has their levels of struggle.
• 1:04:33
  Doron Gild: Yeah, and I think self-doubt is valid, and I think that being afraid is valid, but I think that persevering and fucking making work and enjoying the work itself Again, those moments of me finishing shooting and hanging the things on the wall or print this, this, might this, these joys that are unmatched, unmatched like it makes it all so happy and it's, it's vital.
• 1:05:00
  Doron Gild: And as a creative, as an artist, that's literally why we keep going and keep going.
• 1:05:05
  Doron Gild: It's that, like people jump off out of planes in order to get this kind of feeling, I don't do that, but I'll go and spend a day running around with nine lights everywhere and that's exciting to me.
• 1:05:18
  Doron Gild: That's the adrenaline, that's the love, that's the passion.
• 1:05:20
  Doron Gild: It's really fun.
• 1:05:21
  Matt Jacob: Good for you.
• 1:05:22
  Matt Jacob: Well, I look forward um staying close and following that work as you, as you create more and um, yeah, I just want to thank you again for for taking part and being honest and really, uh, telling us how it is and, uh, I wish you the best of luck moving forward.
• 1:05:38
  Matt Jacob: Hopefully I'll I'll catch you and that would be a wonderful man.
• 1:05:41
  Matt Jacob: Come on up here, take a vacation from bali, maybe, uh, maybe I'll wait till the spring.
• 1:05:48
  Doron Gild: For sure.
• 1:05:48
  Doron Gild: I really appreciate you having me on here.
• 1:05:50
  Doron Gild: I hope you could figure out a way to edit my madness, and thank you, man.
• 1:05:56
  Matt Jacob: I really appreciate it.
• 1:05:57
  Matt Jacob: We don't edit madness, but we love it.
• 1:06:00
  Matt Jacob: We love you.
• 1:06:00
  Matt Jacob: Thank you so much.
• 1:06:01
  Matt Jacob: Thank you so much, Matt.
• 1:06:02
  Doron Gild: Have matt, have a wonderful time, have a wonderful day.