Pictas Focus: Interview with the artist
Talking with Dan D'Ascenzo
Hello my dear friend! Here we are with another interesting interview. My guest for this appointment is Dan D’Ascenzo, who’s been in the music industry for a long time and is also an amazing photographer.
Let’s start!
Q: Welcome Dan, it’s such a pleasure to have you here! Would you please tell us something about yourself?
A: Hey Pictas members and readers, I’m Dan D’Ascenzo.
Originally from Belgium, I’m living in the Netherlands (at the moment I’m writing this interview). I have the incredible privilege of being the father of two amazing boys.
For the past 32 years, I have been busy in the music industry with 20 years as a full-time entrepreneur. I started as a DJ, then music producer for myself then for others and ended up as an audio mastering and mixing engineer with worldwide artists and credits.
Today, besides my photography activities, I’m pivoting into a coaching business where I gather all my knowledge in audio, video, photography and solopreneur to help content creators ascend their personal brand through audio/video strategies, live-streaming & authentic online course creation for audience growth.
I am now incorporating transformational mindset coaching and self-esteem coaching into my services.
You can find me here:
Portfolio
Substack
Instagram Monochrome
Instagram Street
Instagram Portraits
Vero
X
Q: Wow, that’s great! Let’s focus for a moment on photography: how did you initially approach this art?
A: I have always been a photographer. Actually, even before choosing the music industry.
I remember picking the camera of my dad all the time.
I loved (and still love) the film days. As a geek though I bought a digital camera in the early stages. It was an Olympus Camedia 2Mpixel, then a Fujifilm S5100.
Funky times.
Q: Oh man, 2Mpixels…sounds like ages ago! Now, you work both in the music and photography industries: do you see any similarities between these forms of art?
A: It was only 10 years ago that I realized that taking pictures is like creating music.
The composition of an image is like recording the instruments. You make sure that all layers that you look after in your frame are aligned before you press the shutter.
In music, you imagine the scene and you make sure that all instruments reflect this scene like layering in a compositing. From left to right and front to back.
Then you develop/edit your images like you would edit and mix all instruments together in music.
Controlling the light and colours...Like you would control the volume and equalise the sounds.
And finally, you colour grade your images to give the final look and consistency to your brand or the brand of your client, like you would master your songs to be sure they translate well on every system and platform.
You get the big picture here.
But then, I started to see my scenes all the time. And I remember having been often frustrated not carrying a camera to capture those scenes.
So I decided to buy a camera again. And since then I have literally taken pictures every single day.
Q: I’ve never seen it this way, it totally makes sense. Which of the two, in your opinion, is more powerful in conveying a message? And in which way?
A: Both worlds of course tell stories. Photography has a more immediate impact compared to music.
But I feel more aligned nowadays with the photography world.
I would say that the photography world is less toxic in general. The communities are really nice.
Q: Having a look at your work, I can see you mainly do street photography, even if you also touched a bit of portrait and boudoir. How did you pick Street as your main genre?
A: I suppose as creative individuals we all need to discover our why.
I believe that it might resonate with most who will read this, it’s not something that comes overnight.
And often things are actually concealed by elements outside our conscious awareness.
I frequently find myself torn between Monochromatic and Color photography, for instance.
I really love both. And I don’t feel right to mix them all.
This is why I have several Instagram accounts. One dedicated to BNW, one to colour/film/video and one to portraits exclusively.
I naturally started doing street photography during my daily walks. I really love what it brings to my technique.
Layering, composition, light, speed, read a scene.. You name it.
And when you combine this with mindfulness, then you start to slow down everything. It’s like slow motion in real life.
The funny thing is that I was always shy to approach strangers while I was also shooting portraits.
But this moment also helped me to get over this fear and I started to actually improve my work too. Talking to people, listening to their stories and capturing them brought me to something new: creating documentary films. This is my next personal project which I’m very excited about.
While I slowly want to turn the page to pure street photography I find myself more aligned with fine art black and white.
It combines street and human elements, but with more graphics and patterns.
Q: Your images are indeed amazing and tell incredible stories. I’m now looking forward to seeing what’s coming in this 2024.
Thanks a lot for being here with me today, and have a great new year!
A: I’m really excited for 2024 and up. I feel that a new step in my creative process is coming and it feels good.
Thank you for reading.
Stay Creative.
This is all for this interview. I recommend you follow Dan across his accounts.
Enjoy!
Learn, create and inspire together!
Great article Dan and Matteo
Thank you, Matteo and the Pictas Team for having me 🤍❤️.