January 24, 2007
Posted to the web January 24, 2007
NADAV Kandar landed in Europe with a bump -- literally. The cheapest flight the 21-year-old could get from Johannesburg was into Luxembourg.
When we landed, it was such a hard landing all the oxygen masks fell down, he recalls.
I took the bus to Amsterdam and then to London.
Kandar now has a portfolio of work that includes Levi's, Cartier, Rolex and Absolut Vodka.
He is the most successful stills photographer this country has ever seen, says Dennis da Silva, the owner of Silvertone gallery in Johannesburg's Parktown. He is among the top five in commercial advertising in photography in the world.
Success wasn't immediate for the Tel Aviv-born Kandar, whose family moved to Johannesburg when he was three and who went to King David and Woodmead schools. He knew no one in London except the sister of a friend, who owned a hotel in the West End. She put him up in the basement servants' quarters.
That first year did not bring success for Kandar.
I had done all I wanted to do except work.
The R4000 he had brought from SA was almost exhausted and he was on the point of returning.
One day, however, he walked into the studio of a photographer he had visited before. The photographer's assistant was crying. Her mother was ill and she had to go and look after her.
Kandar took her position.
Kandar says advertising was the only route he considered.
At that stage, the only assistant work, the only door I'd seen open, was in advertising.
In SA, it was the only way you could make a living. You could do fashion, but mainly had to do advertising. When I came to England, that was my interest.
Landing a job didn't necessarily mean staying in the UK. That decision came a few years later when he had established himself.
I was 24 when I met an agent who saw my portfolio.
I had been to Morocco to do landscapes and black and white. He took me on. I was incredibly young, in London with a studio he was paying for, and with some work.
Some years on I was pretty much the young guy on the block. That was a big catalyst.
Kandar's website shows work for clients including Amnesty International, Nike, Haagen-Dazs, upmarket London department store Harvey Nichols, General Motors, Rolling Stone magazine, Volkswagen and Unicef.
In advertising, he makes waves. Kandar ranks number one in a listing of 524 commercial photographers by Luerzer's Archive, a German-based publisher that showcases commercial art from around the world and is widely used as a reference by advertising agencies.
In 2001, Kandar published Beauty's Nothing, a book of photos he took interspersed with text by authors including Peter Carey, Nick Cave and Gerard Malanga.
He is now producing a book of photos he took in China, has also photographed the deserted city of Chernobyl, and has exhibited in Los Angeles and New York galleries.
His different types of work raise the question whether commercial photographers can move into, and be fully accepted by, the world of artistic photography. Da Silva says it is not possible.
For some reason advertising photographers can never make it and be accepted in the art world, he says.
Another reason is the money. Kandar, now married with a wife and three children, would not be able to give up a lucrative business to concentrate solely on art, Da Silva says.
To sacrifice all that and go to the art side -- that's holding him back.
Others, such as Kathy Ryan, photo editor of The New York Times Magazine, say it is possible.
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