Max.Bon Artist Spotlight
Photo taken by @max.bon
What is your home city?
Who Are You?
NYC
Born in New York, but raised internationally. I began shooting film while documenting my travels. From Cuba to Thailand, the camera always at my side. As I became a husband and father my passion for photography took a backseat. Yet years later with a new digital camera in hand, my passion was reignited. However, urban exploration was what I naturally sought out. This newfound path has taken me from forbidden rooftops in LA to an abandoned underground NATO base in France. Along the way I further developed my style; injecting a beautiful model into the dystopian landscape which I so love to explore. Fortunately, success has followed. I began exhibiting my work in galleries from Miami to New York. Sony Alpha signed me as a contracted photographer. And last year a collaborative book was published with myself and four other explorers. These adventures define who I am and where I will go. This I know more than ever.
What is a memory attached to one of the images shared?
As a cinephile, films have always had a profound effect on my artistic vision. None more so than Point Break (1991). As a young teen, I was transfixed by the villain’s words as he excused his actions as a bank robber; “This was never about the money. This was about us against the system, that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. We are here to show those guys that are inching their way on the freeways in their metal coffins that the human spirit is still alive.” Decades later, I asked my friends to join me on a trip to LA. With our matching suits and dead presidents masks, I paid homage to to the movie. We drove thru the LA River under the famous 6th Street Bridge, where countless Hollywood projects have been filmed; laughing all the while. And furthermore, reigniting that spirit of freedom and camaraderie that so impacted me as a young kid sitting in a dingy movie theater in Brooklyn.
What’s in your bag?
Sony a1
Sony a7 r iv
Sony GM 16-35mm f2.8 v2
Sony GM 14mm f1.8
Sony GM 70-200 f2.8 v2
Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8
Peak Design travel tripod
Manfrotto Windsor camera backpack
Coast Polysteel 600 lumens flashlight
Hundreds of stickers …
Did photography lead you to exploring or did exploring lead you to photography?
Why do you explore?
The answer is clear. It is both. I remember fondly that while spending summers in a country house in France; I would venture alone into the forest. At age seven, I explored the secrets and wonders of these woods. I found hedgehogs, unknown statues and abandoned farms. I would have no fear but only excitement and curiosity. That certain explorer gene within me, within us - the fortunate ones. Yet, years later with my new camera in hand attending my first Manhattan instameet, I met many acquaintances and later friends. Some invited me to shoot the Fall foliage in Central Park, some to shoot street photography in Soho. But one asked to meet late at night on the Upper West Side, no details given. Soon I was climbing over a fence. I had arrived at the Freedom Tunnel and the graffiti, the insane vanishing points and most of all that sense of “I am not supposed to be here” excited the hell out of me. As I delved more into exploration, more adventures came along. Photography leading me to it all. So as you see, it is both.
“Don’t go because someone tells you to go. Don’t go because it would make you look good. Or because you can make IT look good. Go because you have to go. Go because it was written in your DNA. Go because it pours out from every seam and dream...”