Daniel Root lives by the saying, the early bird catches the worm, explaining, "I always have woken up early, to the point that my mother warned my wife that 'Danny always gets up with the birdies'." In this week's podcast, we take a deep dive into Root's pre-dawn photo excursions and his multifaceted creative career in New York's East Village. He joins Derek for an in-depth chat that takes us back to the experimental vibe of the early 80s, which gave him permission to create. Daniel's "Say Yes to Anything" attitude kicked off an intrepid journey—from capturing BTS photos of Madonna on set to lucrative freelance jobs capturing production stills and portraits to his recent photo series' documenting vacant bars and empty city streets. He shares openly about his motivation to make pictures that "give him a bump" and the process that leads to these results, explaining, "with the bar book, and whenever I do an interior, it's always from the outside. And you can put the lens right on the glass and that stabilizes the camera itself. And, also, that allows you a longer shutter speed, so the camera can collect the light. And you can do things with a camera that you can't do with your eye. So, if you can get a handheld at two seconds, you can really pull a lot out." If you've enjoyed this podcast, please follow us @bhpodcastnetwork and be on the lookout for more inspiring conversations in our new format. Guest: Daniel Root Episode Timeline: 0:00: Wake Up City: Photos at Dawn, with Daniel Root 2:34: Daniel's stumble into the New York City artist era in the early 1980s. 5:24: Being ready to say yes to anything, especially Madonna filming Desperately Seeking Susan. 10:28: Living in the East Village in early 80s gave Daniel permission to create. 14:16: Becoming intentional with wanting to do a project: New York Bars at Dawn. 17:13: Daniel's East Village Then & Now book and a publisher who wanted him to do a "subvention." 20:24: The process and gear behind Daniel's Bars at Dawn project, and his newest series in the streets. 24:38: Capturing the mood of Daniel's New York Bars at Dawn book—he thinks of the bars as people. 26:46: A history lesson about downtown Manhattan streets and neighborhoods. 30:52: Daniel's quirky new photo project called One-to-One. 33:13: The most enjoyable part of the self-promotion for Daniel's two books. 36:55: Derek goes down a rabbit hole of 1980s NYC nostalgia. 39:45: The unexpected challenges behind Daniel's East Village Then & Now project. 46:20: The art of being fueled by adrenaline and always looking for a new way to see. 50:29: Daniel's current project experimenting with landscapes and different layers of OHP material. 54:28: Trying not to work for social media likes and the importance of pleasing yourself first. 57:25: Daniel's long history as a B&H customer and his memories of shopping on 17th Street. 59:49: The process to edit down 150,000 pictures from more than 900 pre-dawn NYC walks. 1:04:00: Stories about failing hard drives and losing 25 years of B&W negatives from a basement during hurricane Sandy. 1:08:02: Derek walks himself into a challenge to do a side quest wandering the streets of New York before dawn. Guest Bio: Daniel Root is a fine art photographer and a principal in the visual arts firm The Root Group. A resident of New York's East Village since the early 1980s, Daniel's photography career began in 1984, doing production stills for theater, video shoots, television and portraiture for entertainment and corporate clients. This work continues today and has appeared in most major magazines throughout the world. His popular predawn photographs of Manhattan water holes are collected in the book New York Bars at Dawn, published by Abbeville Press. You can find his daily photos, a practice he's now maintained for a decade, on Instagram. Stay Connected: Daniel Root website: https://rootrootroot.com/ Daniel Root business website: https://rootgroupnyc.com/ Daniel Root Linktree: linktr.ee/danielroot Daniel Root Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielrootphotography/ Daniel Root East Village Then & Now book: https://rootrootroot.com/the-east-village-then-and-now/ Daniel Root New York Bars at Dawn: https://rootrootroot.com/new-york-bars-at-dawn/ Host: Derek Fahsbender Creative Producer: Jill Waterman Technical Producer: Peter Maziarz Editor: Dave Moncion Social Media: Grace Massara Music: Gabriel Richards Executive Producer: Dana Glidden
