David Picard
David Picard in his boudoir in Montréal
Photos: David Picard, Félix Michaud
Creative Direction: Cece and Martina Di Bacco
Interview edited by Nadège Roscoe-Rumjahn
A CONVERSATION IN THE ATELIER WITH
David Picard
Seeking a change during the 2021 COVID lockdown, photographer David Picard relocated to Montreal and was happy to find himself a loft space that could satisfy his aesthetic desires and artistic lifestyle at a more affordable price than what Toronto real estate had to offer.
With an established client base in Montreal, the transition into Montreal’s joie de vivre was an easy one for David. “I just always felt comfortable here. I always say Toronto feels like you live to work and Montreal feels like you work to live. I wanted to restrike a balance, where living was a bigger part of my life—but still do it in a beautiful space of course!”
Future Simple Studio was hired to help transform David’s vision into reality, a collaboration that resulted in our project Le Saint. As a busy professional living in a fully open loft he was seeking an area to help him disconnect, regenerate and perform his daily routines in a more ritualistic way. We instantly connected over shared creative perspectives, love of unique spaces and admired his unique focused attention to detail. We recently sat down to catch up, dive deeper into transitions, worldly possessions and the particularities of ambient noise.
CD: It is really exciting to be able to work in different cities—and great that you were able to make such a smooth transition to Montreal. When you were working in Toronto, what attracted you to Montreal clients or rather what attracted Montreal clients to you?
DP: I think my work was a little more organic or free than what was being done by others at the time. I began my career in this era where very few photographers dominated the field. It was still a print world; if your name wasn't in one of the two fashion magazines in Canada, you basically weren't a legitimate artist. I was lucky to slip in at the dawn of Instagram, there was a shift—a democratization—where people could start to see work. Your name didn't matter; if an image was beautiful, it was a legitimate image. It was a new space and a new time where one could navigate around the gatekeeping. I don't know why Montreal specifically seemed to respond, but it did.
CD: What does a day in the life of David look like?
DP: It depends on the day and the type of shoot—if it's a set day, I’m shooting, being crazy, and being loud…
On smaller sets, me and my team of digital technicians and lighting assistants usually start around 7 or 8. We get to set and for the first two, three hours we start building out all the lighting, while the models are in hair and makeup. For larger shoots, there's a full pre-light day to set things up ahead of time. On my recent shoot for Canada Goose in Toronto we had to build out 40 foot walls, mirrored floors, smoke machines and water elements. We like to have everything set up beforehand, so that, on the day of the shoot, you can hit the ground running and get through the shot list.
It all depends on the client. Some commercial clients have very product-driven initiatives, where they are after certain details with cleaner lighting within a certain mood. In a weird way, these are the harder shoots. You are dancing in this much finer creative space, but still need to meet these, say, 30 asks.
Editorial shoots are really just unpaid work for a magazine. Canadian print sometimes has a limited budget and the photographer pays out of pocket. It is an opportunity for us to maybe have a better model, better clothing; in a way editorial shoots are a type of promotional advertising for a photographer’s portfolio.
CD: It’s interesting, the relevance that magazines still have in our daily life regardless of the fluctuation of their daily presence in the last decade. They still hold so much weight.
DP: There is still something about picking up a magazine off the racks and seeing images in print. Or walking into a huge mall and seeing your image on a massive scale.
CD: Can you remember the first time you saw an image that you took at a scale that made you really think What the fuck, I did that ?
DP: I once shot for Simons, and the image ended up on the side of the actual mall. From the highway, the whole exterior of the building was an image I took. There's still something interesting about even just walking through the mall, seeing small posters every four or five stores of images that I was involved in that makes me stop and think Oh, that's kind of nice!
CD: It is one of my dreams to see an ATELIER bag in the wild! My friend called me to tell me she was at the doctor's office and was wearing an ATELIER Tote and the receptionist recognized the brand and told her she had the Pochette. I was so jealous of this!
DP: It's such a genuine pat on the back.
The game
(talking about the creative perspectives cards)
DP: I love this little ripped corner. It's like a little chip on a piece of stone.
CD: Just so you know, that's where it got rotated. It was at the end of the block when I was trying to cut it. It was the paper that was resisting.
DP: I love it. I have a weird love for old paper cutters. I love the grid on the board. I love the sound that they make. I know they are not specific to libraries, but in my mind, I want to be in a library while I'm cutting paper.
CD: They make me think of my dad, who recently sold his printing company. When I used to visit the print shop as a kid, there were two things that I loved about it: One, the smell of the ink, and two: the very satisfying sound of cutting paper. In the studio, we have a really good cutter and even now when I cut these cards, the sound is amazing… I'm going to try to record it and do some ASMR!
DP: Honestly! It's when they need a little bit of oil. The sound is not squeaky exactly, but you can hear the metal on metal - just a little bit. Maybe I have a skewed perspective of what a soothing sound is. Often when people come over to my house and I have music on, they’ll ask if I am okay. And I'm like, what do you mean? I think this is an uplifting, peppy mix! They're like, Dave, we feel like we're at a funeral.
Regardless, I look at paper cutters regularly. I ask myself if I can add them to my decor, but where am I putting a paper cutter? I just like the idea of it.
I'll start with this card, because I like the torn edge.
Question 1
Design can change the world, true or false
DP: In the grand scheme of things: True.
I want it to be true, especially right now, it feels at the forefront for so many different reasons. On one hand, you don't want to selfishly think that design is the most important thing, when people are dying. But, the flip side is, without art we would just exist to wake up, eat, and go back to sleep. So, I guess art and design gives us a reason. Art and design are involved in everything we do: they drive industry, they are used in laying out a garden... I mean, the arrangement of vegetables in a garden, to me, is design, especially if it's done well. The border of dirt, where the dirt meets the grass, the height of the grass—that’s design!
Question 2
What is the best advice you've gotten that you wish to share?
DP: I'd say it would be twofold.
The first thing that popped into my mind was from back when I was DJing. A club promoter in Toronto told me, eat your humble pie. At the time, I was just so excited to be DJing in New York and in Mexico. I don't think I was not being humble, but this advice did stick with me.
And when I was just starting out, I remember assisting other photographers and looking at successful artists across the field of fashion and thinking more about how I didn't want to do certain things. I learned a lot by watching and listening about the physical act of creating, which in my field is building and shaping light and about capturing it, digitally or on film. I learned that talent should exceed ego.
There still has to be a little bit of ego, because you have to have the confidence that your point of view is worth sharing. And maybe that doesn't need to be called ego.
CD: I don't think that's called ego.
DP: Maybe it's something else. There doesn't need to be that place of ego in creation.
CD: It could be called the self. Ego has a negative connotation of me over you. Whereas we all have a birthright to be a self, to be your own person.
DP: Yes, the advice is don't be an asshole. Be excited by the work. And if you are that proud of what you've done, just think about what you could do next week.
CD: I was lucky enough to meet Renzo Piano when he was working on the Museum of Istanbul and I was presenting a master plan for Galataport in that city. At one point he looked at us and he said: you know, I'm 74, and in every project, I learn. I don't know everything. And if I did know everything, then I wouldn't be doing this anymore.
Question 3
What is your most prized possession?
DP: I don't know if I have a prized possession. I think this house is my prized possession at this point. Honestly, I love my space. Largely due to your contribution!
CD: I find your answer intriguing, because I see you as a bit of a curator and collector.
DP: And I do, but I also can dispose of something very quick, which sounds horrible.
CD: Okay, I'm going to flip the question. Is there something in this space that you're burning to get rid of?
DP: Oh, always; like half of it. Not that it's always changing, but as I settle into this space and my place, I'm able to better define it. My taste is always evolving.
It might be because I struggled as a closeted gay kid in a small town. I had a lovely upbringing; my parents are great. But it was not until my fourth year at college that I came out, so I was 21. I think it does a bit of a number on you to not ever be able to be your authentic self or feel like you fit in.
CD: When you did find a new path to expressing yourself, did you know that this would lead to a creative path that you would commit to?
DP: I don't think it did in a direct way; I’ve kind of had a meandering path. I was always a great student with fantastic grades, but I didn't know what I wanted to do—I thought I would go to school to be a lawyer.
I ended up attending Western in a unique cultural studies program, which really opened my eyes. It was called MIT, media information and technoculture. This was at the dawn of Facebook and we had to post our thoughts online about the course material, which was so foreign at the time. Especially as someone who was still closeted, I felt like most of what one does on the Internet should remain secret. This new public forum was very interesting and an amazing experience. The program had courses that ranged from genocides to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a really broad educational, conceptually and socially. There were interesting professors who just wanted you to think outside the box.
CD: So I guess my follow up question is, when do you think you felt a movement upward; when did you start to feel you were becoming the person you are today?
DP: I certainly enjoyed when I was assisting. My goal was obviously to take photographs myself. But I had this feeling that it was just not happening for me. Meanwhile, I was probably producing content once every two months. DJing was a brief respite because it didn't require a team of 20 people. I was able to go out and accomplish exactly what I envisioned. There was something so satisfying about being able to execute alone.
CD: Now you're always with teams, and I love that you celebrate that. But how do you get that personal expression?
DP: You find good teams. I'm now able to feed off the dynamics of the teams; that's where you can make the magic!
CD: I agree, one doesn't have to be sacrificed for the other. I feel like working in a team is like hearing beautiful music; the sound of harmony versus just one voice. It doesn't mean that we're singing a different tune!
DP: Yes, it's more than an artistic cohesion. It works when there's a good blend of personalities, so many things can come together.
Question 4
Art was at its highest point in [_____ ]
DP: I probably would say right now, because we have access to all of the previous ages of art, but we're also still constantly creating new technology which result in new outcomes.
CD: Does that mean you think that art will always be at its highest point in the current moment?
DP: I don’t like to look back much, to be honest. Historical eras of art are all beautiful and wonderful as distinct moments in time, but I tend to look forward or exist in the present. So maybe the answer is that art doesn't have a highest point?
CD: I struggle with this question myself, because I think that there was an incredible moment in the 1920s when there was a reaction to Victorian architecture and traditions of the time. There was a reaction against art deco and an emergence of the Bauhaus and modernism. To me, that created a radical shift in thinking. It’s crazy that a hundred years later, we're still looking at these examples as if they're completely fresh.
DP: Now we are exposed to everything all day, all the time. Nothing is slow, it is no longer sequential, where one news article comes out and then magazines pick it up - rather the whole world is exposed to one new idea all together. Information, trends disseminate in such a different way.
CD: Is there such a thing as an original idea?
DP: Yeah, absolutely. What's original and what's a riff of something. Look at music for instance. You can pull an actual, digital, no longer physical piece of something, that someone else very thoughtfully and purposefully created and put their name to. After it's been in the public consciousness for ages, you can take it and use it, and that becomes an original engagement of something existing.
CD: I find it quite beautiful and comforting that there are no original ideas, because we're all building off of each other. The result, to your point, is the combination of new ingredients, old ingredients; it is the combination that makes it original.
DP: As long as something you've produced is solely from your own devices, then I think it is original; something that doesn't borrow in a literal or concrete cut and paste way. Originality is tough, look at fashion. Google image search will show you 80 dresses that look almost exactly the same from the last hundred years. This is how people are “inspired at the moment”—inspiration is a powerful term right now.
CD: Inspired by or in the style of, that's our generation right now: in the style of.
DP: This is for the most part because we have too much access to information.
CD: That's why we are trying to get off Pinterest. The algorithm is feeding us too much of the same stuff.
CD: Let's talk about your photography for a second. How can you access a place where you have original ideas? How do you find your inspiration in a way that is not the algorithm feeding you? And consequently, what do you feel is behind the messages you're putting out.
DP: Obviously I see a lot of fashion photography because I fundamentally enjoy it. The first thing I've always done when it comes to mood boarding for particular projects is to start very broad. I begin abstractly, I like painting the space in really broad strokes. I've never started from one image and tried to copy it.
I read a lot of comic books, I still watch anime, I try to consume a lot of content that has nothing to do with fashion, and even nothing to do with mainstream pop culture. At times I’ve looked at an anime character and thought, how would we execute this on an actual human? How would that translate? I like to use the same mood board with different makeup artists, and it will always look completely different, because they're not going to see what I'm seeing when I bring up an image. That's exciting to me, that pulling a reference from something so foreign to a lot of people is interpreted in different ways.
CD: So it's unpredictable?
DP: Yeah. Maybe it is similar in your field, when you work with a new material?
CD: I even think that this could be true how one responds to a space. Let's think of the loft for a second, I could have drawn completely different lines.
DP: Yeah, I can probably redesign the loft a million ways or even in a different material. That’s one thing I thought about a lot in a media literacy class I once took, and I still don't take it for granted. The medium is the message. Marshall McLuhan. Don't forget who's behind the medium.
CD: That's so interesting, to remember that we control the things we keep in our realm of inspiration and we can make sure they are varied, which in turn can give us new pathways to ideas. The second question is related to what you were talking about - how the medium is the message. What kind of message do you hope to share with people through your work?
DP: I've never thought that my work has a message, to be honest.
CD: But the medium is the message and you're making images!
DP: Yeah, but the photography is the message, it doesn't have to be imbued by anything from me it's already contained within. It's inherent that a photograph has a message, and I think it's beyond the creator of the photograph. The viewer is inherently engaged, there's an exchange and you are occupying a role in that exchange beyond what you know.
You can intellectualize any process or piece of art - for example, you can tell me that this image of a hand in pink water due to an algae bloom is speaking to this, but if the 8000 other viewers of that image say something different, well that's what it means.
CD: Ultimately people respond so instinctively to gut feelings. So if you are post-rationalizing, it’s because your subconscious is already scratching away at something that your brain can't catch up to. That's where I have an issue with ego, because I find when ego is in the way, the work suffers.
Question 5
If I weren't a [_____ ], I would be a [_____ ].
DP: I feel like my life has had 20 chapters already. If I weren't a photographer, I would be…. Right now, I would still need to be creating, but maybe more physically, like industrial design. I'm interested in the scale of production, of making objects accessible - there are so many things that I see that are so beautiful that are just so inaccessible financially.
CD: Like that beautiful couch that you wanted with the burnt corks?
DP: I look at buying slabs of cork all the time! Maybe in my free time I will design! I want to buy resin molds—I'm always so curious and like to explore and experiment. I bought some clay the other day, but I knew very quickly that it is not my material.
Question 6
What would you do with your 15 minutes of fame?
DP: I've had 15 minutes multiple times and I've used it every time to get to the next level. When I first got exposure on Instagram, I used it. Same as DJing. At the dawn of Facebook I made a Facebook page that said DJ David Picard and started playing music. People asked: are you a DJ? And I answered: yeah! I defined myself as one and boom, I was a DJ. You know what I mean? Yeah. I've used my 15 minutes,
Question 7
Sans serif or serif?
DP: We're entering a new era of in-between people. In between people; in between fonts... I'm a sans, for sure, but...
CD: But there are some sans fonts that have a little something extra.
DP: As long as it's done in a clean, minimal way. We don't need a loud serif.
CD: David, this has been so fun.
DP: Always a pleasure.
Explore more of David Picard's work
→ www.dpicard.com
→ @d.picard