When looking at the photography portfolio of Eric Davidove, we’re always in awe of it. We’ve featured him many times over the years for great reasons. On learning of his win at the All About Photo awards, he were reminded of a quote from Annie Leibovitz when looking at his work. It goes, “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.” This is holistically a theme that goes through Eric’s work and is a stark contrast to so much of what we see otherwise in the street photography world.
All images by Eric Davidove. Used with permission. For more, check out Eric’s website and his Instagram @edovephotos. Thank you to All About Photo for putting us in touch.
“Firstly, I have no fear when out shooting on the streets,” Eric tells the Phoblographer in agreement with the quote. “I don’t worry about being seen or being called out. It’s as if the camera is my cloak or window into another world where I am not in harm’s way.” He continues to say that he’s attracted to the people he shoots, and has a strong desire to photograph the folks he deems peculiar, unique, individualistic, and non-conforming.
“For reasons unknown to me, I fall in love with them.”
Eric Davidove
Eric defines these folks and has rules for them too. First, he only shoots if he thinks that people will stare at the image for 5 or more seconds. “Photographs with open-ended narratives that evoke emotional responses, that are distinguished and unique, and that are virtually impossible to replicate or copy,” he says about individuality in his work. “People who look at my photographs often see irony, satire, quirkiness, or humor.” But personally, he admires street photographers who effectively incorporate lighting, shadows, colors, textures, layers, and shapes. In fact, he’s trying to put more of that stuff into his work.
In our eyes, he’s one of San Francisco’s best street photographers.
Like so many other street photographers, he’s made the switch to Leica. In December 2023, he left Sony and started using a Leica M11. The reason: he wanted to shoot like a film photographer without using film. He likes using a rangefinder, zone focusing, standby mode, etc. He also finds the menu system super simple and not often needed. He shoots with a 35mm and 28mm prime lens — and that’s it.
Eric edits in Lightroom — and often doesn’t do much to his photographs. It’s typically just cropping, brightness color balance, etc. “I do not add or remove key elements of the composition,” he says. “I limit myself to post-production techniques that could be realistically achieved in a darkroom.”
Of course, there are artists out there also trying to make Generative AI art in the street photography world. Eric welcomes that kind of stuff, but emphasizes transparency and authenticity. For him, he doesn’t think artists should fear AI.
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.
