Ave Pildas Unveiled: A Journey Through Jazz, Streets, and the Lens (pt. 1)
In this compelling two-part interview, we sit down with the iconic Ave Pildas, whose lens has chronicled decades of cultural evolution. Through the digital interface, Pildas shares candid insights into his journey from an architecture student in Cincinnati to a revered photographer and educator. Explore the vivid narrative of a man who, defying the conservative paths laid out before him, captured the vibrant essence of jazz, the architectural majesty of urban landscapes, and the subtle intimacies of everyday life. Join us in this intimate dialogue as Pildas reflects on the serendipitous moments and the deliberate choices that have defined his illustrious career.
Ave Pildas, an influential photographer from Cincinnati, Ohio, carved his niche in the photography world beginning as a photo stringer for Downbeat Magazine in the 1960s. His career took a significant turn when he became the Art Director at Capitol Records, merging his passions for music and photography by creating memorable album covers. As a freelance photographer, he specialized in architectural and corporate photography, showcasing his diverse talents.
Pildas's work, celebrated globally, has been featured in prestigious exhibitions and publications, illustrating his wide-reaching impact. His intimate jazz portraits provide a unique glimpse into the soulful world of music, many of which remain exclusive and unseen. His pieces are revered in collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Now a Professor Emeritus at Otis College of Design, Pildas lives in an eco-friendly home in Santa Monica, CA. He continues to inspire the next generation while digitizing his vintage works and pursuing new projects, proving his undying passion for photography and education.
Hello Ave, can you tell us how it all started?
Well, it all started because I originally wanted to be a sculptor, and that wasn't in my parents' plans. They wanted me to be a doctor, like many parents. But they settled on my becoming an architect.
I started out going to architecture school at the University of Cincinnatti, but it was a conservative school, a good school, but very conservative. At the end of my second year, I was “raked over the coals” in a critique. A project that was assigned to me was completely blasted by my professors because they thought it was beyond my capabilities. My project was a small house on a palisades, on a cliff, that I designed as a hyperbolic paraboloid, which means that you used straight lines to make curves. Well, after that, I was just broken. I said, “no, this isn't for me.” And I switched my focus to design instead, which was much more open. That seemed to work better for me. I got a degree in design. And then I went to work as a designer.
I was what would currently be labelled as an information architect. I was doing collateral work for large, blue-chip companies in Pittsburgh, such as US Steel, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Alcoa, and Westinghouse. During my time working for Westinghouse, I met Paul Rand, a well-known American designer, and a friend of one of my heroes, Noel Martin, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. I expressed my concerns to both designers about relying solely on my taste for design, admitting that I felt unsure about my work despite holding a degree in design. They suggested that if I felt unsure, I should attend school in Switzerland at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel. Both Rand and Martin were friends of Armin Hoffmann, the director of the program at that time, in the mid-sixties.
I quit my job, ordered a Volkswagen camper, flew to Europe where I picked it up in Wolfsburg, Germany, and drove it to Wiedenbruck to have a camper interior installed. Then I headed to Basel, Switzerland. I lived in the camper for a couple of weeks, borrowing electricity from the site of a circus which happened to be there. The circus people allowed me to use their electricity until I found an apartment in Basel. Thus, the three-and-a-half-year journey to understand what I was doing as a designer began. During that time, I took one photography course, which was more of a darkroom course than instruction about taking pictures. Photography was used as a tool in design. The photo labs in Switzerland were impeccably clean, reflecting the Swiss mentality of perfection.
My introduction to photography came earlier, in 1962 or 63, as I was already taking pictures, mainly of jazz musicians, due to my passion for music. Despite studying various instruments, I realized I couldn't match the skill of my heroes like Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. I started taking pictures of them during performances. I was about 22 or 23 years old.
I made friends with the musicians because of my knowledge of music. Though I knew I could never perform at their level, they allowed me to get close and take pictures as they played. All were taken in small clubs using a single setting and one type of film, Tri-X, which I pushed to probably 2400 ASA or more, and one developer. I had a good lens, either Schneider or Zeiss, and due to the low light and the musicians' movements, I pre-focused the camera and waited for them to come into focus. This method resulted in many out-of-focus shots, but also many good ones in focus.
I really didn't know what I was doing, but the musicians liked the pictures. Some of those pictures have become iconic now and are sought after; they're now 60 years old. One nice thing about photography is that it lasts forever. That is one reason why I really like photography.
So would you say there was a pivotal moment or influence that led you to pursue photography?
What led me to pursue photography was initially my interest in the field, but a significant moment came when I was working as a designer. I would hire photographers to take pictures for me, but often, I didn't get the result I wanted. This dissatisfaction encouraged me to take the pictures myself. By the early 1970s, when I found myself repeatedly dissatisfied by the photos made available to me, I realized I could do better due to my formal education in composition.
Additionally, my experiences as a designer contributed to my shift towards photography. Design clients were often hard to please, and frequently requested changes in the work I presented to them, such as altering the color of something or the size of the type. I preferred using eight-point type because it suited my vision and my youthful eyesight, but clients often insisted on twelve-point type for readability by an older audience. My understanding of their perspective came much later, especially after I started to wear glasses.
The clients often wanted to make some adjustments to my work. And sometimes they corrected the work after I had released the files to them. That didn't sit very well with me. So I just said, well, I have more latitude as a photographer. The other thing was that working as a photographer paid much better than working as a designer. I mean, working as a commercial photographer paid better, not being a fine arts photographer And I really like the comment by photographer Dotan Saguy: if you want to make a small fortune as a photographer, you need to start with a big fortune. I thought that comment was very funny, and true.
Recently, I underwent laser eye surgery, which eliminated my need for glasses, a change that significantly altered my perception of colors and sharpness. I'm thrilled with the clarity and vibrancy I now see in the world, and it's reignited my passion for photography, viewing it as a medium that allows for greater personal expression and satisfaction. And I'm looking at things in a new way.
Would you say your background in architecture influenced the way you take pictures?
Oh, yes, very much so. I often use architecture as a background. I mean, I pretty much compose every picture, even though many of them are taken quite quickly. Even as a street photographer, I am very conscious of the background. I have a very good idea of what the composition should be. I know where things should be in the picture and where they shouldn't be.
So I try to eliminate things before I take the picture. I think composition is my strong suit. I know that photographers like to put their subject in the center of the picture, and I do that sometimes too, but I always like to have another relationship happening in the picture so that things aren't always center oriented. They're a little bit off-center, or there's a contrast with something else in the picture, another person or an object, and I pay close attention to the frame lines that become part of the picture. Printing the black border (or frame lines) was a popular technique in the 70s to prove that the image was not cropped; what I saw through the camera was what I printed. I filed the film holder I used in the darkroom so that my prints all included a black border. Nowadays, I just drop my photographs into a frame in Photoshop. But I don't really crop my pictures.
How would you define your philosophy towards photography and how has it evolved over your career?
Well, initially, when I worked as a commercial photographer, I used it to satisfy the wishes of my clients. It didn't matter whether I was taking pictures of food, architecture, products, or fashion, even though I was using my creative skills to take the pictures and I put my energy into it, it was always a picture for somebody else. And it's evolved now to taking pictures for myself. I was very fortunate that I was working as a photographer when photographers were being paid good daily rates. And they were getting half of the money up front before they even started the job. I would get half of the money for the job in advance and then no one ever demanded changes. It was much simpler. They would say, “I like this picture" or "I don't like this picture." Occasionally a client would request a re-shoot. But that was really very rare. So mostly I just satisfied their needs, but I never really felt that it was my photography; it was my energy. But the difference between then and now is that now the photos I shoot are my photographs. I haven't had a client since maybe 2007 or 2008. I don't want any clients, and I don't need any clients. I feel very blessed that I don't have clients.
So when you switched from commercial work to do more of your personal work, do you think it had a great impact on the quality of your work?
I think that it did. I always delivered quality work, but the personal work showed more of myself and what I was interested in. It became my eyes and my vision. The composition was still strong, and it enabled people who were looking at my photographs to see what I was looking at. I was able to say, "Hey, look at what I see, and isn't this interesting?" It was interesting for some people, and maybe not for others, but viewers could see that I was interested in something specific, something that had some value, and they might become interested. So that was much better. I enjoyed that much more.
And what role do you believe photography plays in society?
Well, now that's a good question because every day people are assailed, they’re inundated by images. Everything is an image. To have an image that people remember, at least from my advertising days, you were hammered with the same image over and over so that you would remember it when you went out to buy a box of cereal, or that car. You can't escape photographs, unless you live in the countryside with no connection to the internet, television or social media. You can live in the city and go offline as well and just go out and see what's happening. I'm happiest when I'm away from my studio, away from my house, and out with my camera. The camera becomes an extension of myself, and I'm looking. Many times, I have my camera with me and observe something, forgetting I have the camera, just enjoying the moment. That's a pleasure to me, and when I remember I have the camera, or I don't get lost in just looking, then I use the camera to capture what I'm observing.
All right, I'm asking because a lot of your projects, like for example, "We Are Not Okay," or when you were documenting the parades, or when you did the jazz project, it felt like you wanted to have some kind of impact. Do you feel like photography plays this role of, maybe informing people about issues or maybe about something they didn't know and want to make a change?
Yes, I think that sometimes, if I want to make a political statement or if I have a feeling about a certain issue, as you mentioned regarding the project "We Are Not Okay”, one picture does not tell the whole story. So the project becomes a series of photographs.
For years, I took pictures of people in front of an American flag just as a celebration, maybe at a parade or maybe at the beach. I would set up a flag on the 4th of July, which is a national holiday in the United States, and ask people to stand in front of the flag. As homelessness increased in this country and more of a separation developed between “haves and have-nots,” I said, "Oh, this isn't right." And I realized that homelessness was a serious issue. So then on the 4th of July, instead of celebrating the holiday, I said, "Let's turn the flag upside down and have people stand in front of it because an upside-down flag signals distress. That means we're in trouble." So I hung the flag upside down in Skid Row, which is a part of Los Angeles with a big homeless problem. I asked people to stand in front of the flag so I could take their picture.
When I first placed the flag upside down, I was asked, "Do you know what this means?" by two men, one who was in a wheelchair. And I said, "Yes, it means distress. We're in a mess here. You know, this country is so rich and we have all these people who have nothing and are living on the streets." "Look around," I said. They replied that they were both ex-military, ex-soldiers who understood what distress means. They asked “Can we be the first people to pose in front of the flag?" And I said, "Great." And then the next person who appeared was a woman who was wearing a bikini. She was nowhere near the beach which was about 20 kilometers away. But then she said, "I'll pose. Do you have a bottle of water?" And I did have one that I gave her. She left after I took her picture. Shortly after she returned with a megaphone. She shouted, "Pose for a photo and get a bottle of water." So, people came and said, "Oh, you're giving away a bottle of water if I pose for the picture." I had to tell them that I did not have any more bottles of water. Instead I said “I'll give you a dollar, and you can go and buy a bottle of water." Quickly, there was a line of people waiting to have their picture taken. I gave them each a dollar. I don't normally pay my subjects, but I felt that this was a charitable cause, that I got some great pictures and that I talked to some very interesting people. I wish that I had been filming the activity, as opposed to just taking stills. But that was one of the first times that I was politically active. But after that experience, I became more politically active in taking pictures. I took pictures of military veterans who were living on the street to show that this country was not supporting them after their service. Those people were often damaged, either from their war experiences or from drugs. And I think that part of that series helped to get some vets off the street and into Veterans Administration housing. I think that you can use photography to make a statement and to make people aware of what's going on.
Alright, you have quite a lot of projects. Could you maybe walk us through your creative process from the conceptualization of a photo project to execution?
I respect photographers who are zeroed in on one subject matter, for instance, like wedding photographers or food photographers. They find what they're interested in, and that's their life, and they become very good at it. As a very inquisitive person, I'm interested in lots of things. So it's always about the search. I'm very curious. And if I see something that I haven't seen before or notice something remarkable in something that I have been looking at for a long time, then I will record the experience by taking a picture. Eventually, I might observe that several photographs have an element in common. That becomes the beginning of a series.
It's not really that formal. It's just that I'm interested in that subject. For instance, one of the latest collection of pictures are some that I shot during the pandemic. I wasn't going out very much and thought, what can I do in my studio? I started taking pictures of circles, squares, and triangles, mostly industrial things that were primary shapes. And then I started a series of still-lifes. Now I have a pretty large collection of still lifes. It is “fine art” photography.
Then after the pandemic, when I started going out again and life was returning to normal, I had a new appreciation for people who were involved in my everyday life, like the gardener. I thought, "Oh, the gardener is coming. I should take a picture of him." So, I set up a background in the studio and asked the gardener to pose in front of it. Then, I asked the driver who delivers my packages from UPS if I could take his picture. When I walked my dog at night through the parking lot of a restaurant, I befriended the valet and asked if I could take his picture. He liked one of my dogs, so I took a picture of him with my dog in the studio after he got off work.
Currently, I have a series of photographs of service people, not necessarily my friends, but people with whom I am friendly. The series will probably expand to include other friends or artist friends, but now, it's just people who are a regular part of my daily life. This is the beginning of a series.
I'll tell you that regarding this series, I was inspired, if I look back on it, by Irving Penn's "Small Trades." He took pictures of people who were butchers, bakers, steel workers, etc. He would go to a city and invite local tradespeople, for example a policeman, a baker, a model, and photograph them. Even though I hadn't seen those pictures for more than fifty years, but they remained in the back of my mind, and I think they might have triggered the idea.
Do you find yourself locked in a particular project or do you rather work on multiple projects at once and then just collect the images and connect them into a project?
Well, I would say the answer to that is both. Sometimes I go out not knowing what I'm going to see, just to explore a new place, and then I often find new things or photographs that fit into a category I already have. When I upload them, I might need to organize them into different folders based on their fit.
Currently, I'm also working on a project about the Santa Monica Pier, which is close to where I live and marks the end of the famous Route 66. It's a significant spot for people traveling from Middle America to the West Coast. I've spent a year taking pictures on the Santa Monica Pier and think I have another year to go. It might take me another year to organize it and possibly another year to find a publisher interested in it as a book project.
Okay, you are taking pictures at a lot of places which are famous, right? A lot of people take photos at those locations. Do you think about how to stand out, or are you not bothered at all with this?
Oh, no, I'm not bothered. There are other photographers whose work I really admire, but I don't care if someone's taking a picture at the same place. If I see someone I know, I'll say hello and we might chat, but mostly I'm oblivious to what's going on around me in terms of other photographers. My focus is on capturing my vision and perspective, regardless of the popularity of the location.
I let my ego go more than fifty years ago. I don't have an ego. Very often, I see a picture that I say, "Oh, wow, I wish I took that picture," because I think it's an incredible photograph. So, I wish I took that picture, but I don't begrudge the person who took the picture. I think, and I often send them a message, and my favorite thing to say is "A good one. Let's see another one," So, I'm complimentary to other photographers. So, regarding going to famous locations, I don't have a lock on where people should go to take pictures. You know, there are lots of people taking pictures, and there are a lot of people who are much better than I am? And kudos to them. They're my heroes.
Where do you meet your subjects or when you're out on the street, how do you choose your subjects or even themes? What draws you to the people you take pictures of? Or is it just by chance?
No, I'm very engaged with a lot of my pictures. You can see that I'm engaged with the people when I'm talking to them or when they're posing for me. It doesn't matter whether it's in the middle of the city or whether it's in Beverly Hills or at the beach. If I say to myself, "Oh, this is a good place to take pictures, a lot is happening here." I know what's going to be in the picture and what's not going to be in the picture. And then, if I'm using a tripod, I set up, and I absolutely know what's in the picture. But even if I'm not using a tripod, I pay attention if I see an interesting person coming down the street or coming towards me or they're just standing around and I think they would enhance a good photograph. I approach and engage them by talking. The way I do that is I say, "Oh, that's a really neat hat, where did you get that hat?" Or if they have a dog, I say, "Oh, and I know the breed of the dog” I say, "Oh, that's a really beautiful Labrador, or that's a beautiful Chihuahua," or "How old is he?" Or if they have a pair of sneakers on that are really striking, I say, "Are those the new Air Jordans? Who makes those sneakers?" So, I have a conversation with people before I'm taking their picture. By the time I'm asking to take their picture, I'm already their friend. Sometimes they say no, I think now it's more difficult because people are concerned about their picture being posted in an favorable way. So, you really need to establish a rapport with people beforehand so that they trust you. Trust is a big part of taking pictures. That doesn't mean I don't take pictures where the subject doesn't know I'm taking pictures. I do, but generally, when that happens, I take the picture and then I leave, not hanging around for a reaction.
There have been times when people see me taking the picture and they don't want me to take it. They want me to erase the picture or hand over the picture or take the film out of my camera. Then I say, "No, I'm not going to do that. You can't have the picture, sorry." I just promise that I won't use it and say goodbye. I don't stand there and argue with them anymore.
Explore the vivid narrative of a man who, defying the conservative paths laid out before him, captured the vibrant essence of jazz, the architectural majesty of urban landscapes, and the subtle intimacies of everyday life.