David Drabin was born in Toronto, Canada in 1970 and graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York in 1996. He is known for his commercial photography as he shoots commercials for various brands and many magazines, including Vanity Fair, GQ, Elle and Rolling Stone.
His work is characterized by a sensual but confusing sense posed by a woman posing in an impressive setting in a big city like New York, Tokyo or Paris. When David Drabin researches the concepts of identity and the intimate world, the viewer feels like he, sometimes as voyeurs, sometimes as moviegoers, breaking into the scene and being pushed to think about what they're watching.
As he said in an interview, even in fashion shoots, he focuses on the story of the subject, and clothing and accessories only help shape the image. In addition, in David Drabin's photography, light plays a relevant role and is precisely studied to minimize manipulation of images. Don't forget the amazing scenery.
He embodied the triumph of fashion photography as an art form in himself. His photographs are full of narrative – the ability to tell a story in one photograph – a concept first articulated by photojournalist Margaret Bourke White and then applied to fashion photography by Helmut Newton.
Young David Drabin cleverly avoided Newton, who first used a saturated palette to make the most of the deep emotional power of red. He limited the use of white, making unexpected white garments full of lust. David Drabin's elegant approach transforms his audience into voyeurs, able to experience the desires and fantasies of his captivating fictional subject matter.