Dan Martensen: The Fashion Photographer Who Learned to Fit In

Homing

Fashion photographer Dan Martinson discusses his journey from a suburban New York childhood to establishing a successful creative career and

Key takeaways

• Dan's move from Pleasantville to Armonk at age 11 was a formative period of feeling like an outsider due to wealth disparities.
• His photography technique relies heavily on curiosity and active listening to build intimacy with subjects.

Main topics

• Childhood identity and social displacement
• Photography as human connection

Notable quotes

It's not healthy to hide your feelings. And if you get really good at hiding your feelings, you don't just hide them from other people, you sort of hide them from yourself.

Conclusion

A profound exploration of how early-life sensitivity can be transforme

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Everybody that I told back home was shocked I was moving. You're the last person to leave New York. That's crazy. It took me a while to adjust to London, as much as I loved it, and I do. And it wasn't until we actually settled into this house. Speaker 2 (0:17) It's not healthy to hide your feelings. And if you get really good at hiding your feelings, you don't just hide them from other people, you sort of hide them from yourself. I've protected myself by turning off the one thing that made me really actually who I was. And I'm 46 now, and I'm still working at it. It's amazing how willing people are to really give you more if you just show a little interest. And I think that, for me, has been how you get a good picture. Speaker 2 (0:51) There's lines down the block. I'm like, viral. We're running out of bagels at like 11 o'clock in the morning. Next day, we make twice as many. We run out at noon. Next day, we make twice as many. We're running out at 1. Endless amount of chaos. Like, I only ordered 1,000 coffee cups. Like, full stop. To put that in perspective, like, we get them delivered in the 30,000-size box. I ordered 1,000. I was like, yeah, well, 1,000. Who's ever going to sell 1,000 coffees? Sold that in like less than a week. Speaker 1 (1:22) Hello, welcome back to Homing. My guest today is Dan Martinson, who's a fashion and portrait photographer. So you'll find his work in magazines like Vogue and ID and so on. And he's photographed all sorts of interesting folk as well. So people like Ed Sheeran and Sienna Miller and Pharrell Williams and so on. He's also, surprisingly, the founder of a bagel shop called It's Bagels. Well, there's actually now four of them, I think. And he opened its bagels because he couldn't find a New York style bagel that reminded him of home when he was in London. And he felt a bit homesick. And so he thought, why not start his own bagel shop? So that's what he did. And it's now grown into a phenomenally successful thing. So he's a very rare combination of a well-known photographer and a well-known bagel founder. Who knew? I met Dan at an event at the River Cafe a couple of years ago, and we got on really, really well. I think he's one of the good guys. I really like him. He's very sensitive, and he's very funny as well. So we recorded this conversation at his home in northwest London, which he's refurbished with his wife, and it's his family home, and it means a lot to him. And it's really that place that, more than anything else in his life, has allowed him to settle in London and feel more grounded. So... Here it is. I hope you enjoy it. It's Homing with Dan Martinson. Dan, what a pleasure. Here we are in your home. So what would you call where we are area-wise? What do you call it? Speaker 2 (2:58) Well, technically it's called Mabesbury. Okay. But... Speaker 2 (3:04) Queens Park's right there. And we've lived in the area. We lived in Queens Park for five years before we moved in this house, or four years. And people in Queens Park, if you say I live in Mavisbury, have no idea what you're talking about. Speaker 1 (3:16) Okay. Speaker 2 (3:17) So it's this... Queens Speaker 1 (3:19) Park borders. Speaker 2 (3:20) Queens Park borders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really cool. I think it was all built around the same time in the late 1800s. This neighborhood was kind of like a development of sorts. Mostly standalone houses. And actually my mother-in-law sent me a PDF when she found it. She's great. She's like a natural-born historian. She kind of sent me this like 600-page PDF about Mavisbury that I just barely got through. And talking about how like, you know, you look down the street and there's sort of like five houses built in one style. And then they built another five or ten houses in slightly different style. Okay. It's only about three blocks that way. It's a triangle. So it's like this. funny sort of like three by four by four or whatever block triangle called Mavisbury. Speaker 2 (4:06) We love it here. Speaker 1 (4:07) I really appreciated you showing me around the house. It Speaker 2 (4:10) was a good tour. It was fun. Speaker 1 (4:11) Yeah, and so what we always do is we make the tour available on Patreon, which is where our members can join up and watch the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff if they want to go a bit deeper. The point of this conversation is to get to know you a bit more. And I'd love to know where you grew up, first of all. Where was your first home? Speaker 2 (4:32) First home was in Pleasantville, New York. That sounds Speaker 1 (4:36) lovely. Was it a Pleasantville? It was. Speaker 2 (4:38) It was really lovely, actually. I mean, it was, you know, I'm born just like as the clock struck 1980, basically. So growing up in the 80s in suburban New York in a town called Pleasantville is pretty much what you probably imagine, you know. Cycle to school, you know, kids playing out in front of the house. You know, moms and dads walking to the train station to commute. You know, Red Brick, Bedford Road School, Red Brick Elementary School. It was very sort of storybook, suburbia Americana. Like, you know, it's great. I loved going out there. Speaker 1 (5:18) And so tell me about who you were there. Was it one home you were there most of the time? Well, we lived Speaker 2 (5:23) there from when I was born. My sister was born. two years later and we lived there until i was just about 11. okay Speaker 1 (5:32) and Speaker 2 (5:32) then we moved to A town just north of there called Armonk, which is, it's sort of, it's so funny because at 11 years old, I mean, you can imagine, I might as well be moving to China. I couldn't drive. I didn't know anybody there, really. And, you know, I know why my parents did it, to go there. You know, we had a bigger house. We lived in the woods now. And the neighborhood, you know, we lived on a cul-de-sac and there was like three homes kind of all down driveways. You know, it had more space. And the school district was better. But for me it was like, I remember at 11, I still, I mean, I'm still talking to my therapist about it now actually. I still, I was in another world, you know. Suddenly, you know, the other kids at school had pools. and their back gardens and like the difference between what i had and what they had was suddenly you know pleasantville was like just kind of a sweet little working class town um certainly not poor but not rich and you can walk everywhere you knew everyone and suddenly i was in this like kind of in a whole new world and it was really like it really jarring for me actually so how did Speaker 1 (6:55) that affect you looking back on it Speaker 2 (6:58) How much time do you Speaker 1 (6:59) have? Speaker 2 (7:01) Well, I mean, I'm slightly exaggerating. But no, I mean, it really did have a massive effect. I mean, this is at a time where, you know, at 10, 11 years old, your friendships are really kind of gelling. You're kind of, I mean, I was kind of a late bloomer. So I wasn't, my body wasn't exactly changing yet. I was still a little kid. But, you know, you're kind of coming in. It's the wonder years, right? Like you're kind of coming into your own in many ways. And, you know, for me. I think suddenly having to make new friends and figure out who I was and, you know, not just for my own knowledge, but who I wanted to be in there. They had no idea who I was either. That town was much more wealthy. We didn't become any more wealthy. But suddenly the town was bigger and people had a lot more. And some people actually also had a lot less. And so for me, suddenly I never really saw myself on the spectrum of haves and have-nots until I moved. I suppose on some levels I was really jealous of the kids who's, you know, like they'd go off on Christmas holidays and come back with, you know, cornrows in their hair and sunburns and suntans, whatever. And I will have played in my backyard the whole time, kind of, you know. Or like someone had like four car garages or their dad had like a Porsche or a Ferrari or something. And like... I don't think I was at the time. I still, I don't think of myself as materialistic, but it's suddenly, you know, it's jarring to a young kid to sort of be like, how come they have all that? We have this. And how come they have only that? You know, like one of my best friends, his dad was, I think, Paraguayan and was the gardener for another one of my friends. And he lived, my friend grew up in a two bedroom apartment above the garage on the estate that another guy that I knew, you know, and we were all friends. And it was just, you know what I mean? So it was suddenly the world kind of opened up in a way that I, it happened very fast, like overnight. Suddenly I was like, wow. But I always yearned for Pleasantville. I still do in a way. And so, you know, I kept my friends there as best I could. And when I was old enough to kind of like hitch rides to go like, you know, hang out. at the 7-Eleven in Pleasantville or a skateboard or whatever. I mean, it was literally a 15-minute drive. But if you're 11, 12 years old, unless your parents are taking you, you're not going anywhere. You're not going to see those people. So it was a huge departure for me, actually, and really formative. Speaker 1 (9:36) How interesting that it can be so close geographically, yet you describe it as such a different world. I mean, so looking back on your 11-year-old self then, how would you describe yourself and why why your it sounds like you felt like an outsider in some way we didn't fit in what were you like I mean Speaker 2 (9:54) I kind of didn't um but to the extent that like I think how could I have fit into a new school Speaker 2 (10:06) As well as the school. So I came from a school where there was maybe 65 kids in the whole grade year. And I knew all of them. Some of them I went to nursery with. You just know them. They're just there. And some kids added on. Two or three a year or whatever. And that was it. And so that was just like the whole world was what I knew. Then you go into a new world. which is 15 minutes away, and I knew nobody. And nobody knew me. Speaker 2 (10:40) And so suddenly I think coming from a place where you just, not only did you know who you were, but you didn't even take the time to ask. Suddenly you're in a new place and you're asking yourself every day and everyone else around you is asking and they're testing and this. And you kind of, you know, I mean, personally made friends or thought I made friends and they turned out to be not so great and made some friends that I still have today. Dear friends. So, you know, that's just, I think, normal. But again, I think it was, it definitely had an effect on me in the sense that I was an outsider. Like, it took me a while, I think, to really find my people. You know, it took a couple, two, three years before I was starting to actually hang out with people that I felt like, you know, I don't know, high school, middle school, high school, tough. You know, it was a very competitive environment. I took it all for granted, I think, too. That was just like how it was. And I'm an easy, like I adapt to everything. And I don't really tend to show when things are bothering me. I try to keep it cool when actually I was going through a tough time for a while there. It wasn't until I was about 14, 15 that I started to make the kind of friends, in fact, two of my best friends that I'm still. daily in touch with now architects in fact who i will also introduce you to on your next trip to new york um they you know it wasn't until i was a little older that i really started to get you know um find my feet so i spent a good amount of time actually kind of trying to figure out who i needed to be in order to fit in rather than who i really was i joke about therapy but i do see a therapist i love seeing my therapist i've been seeing a therapist for years um and i'm proud of that but i say that because actually Speaker 2 (12:37) There's no wonder I became a fashion photographer. You Speaker 1 (12:40) know what I mean? Speaker 2 (12:41) Why Speaker 1 (12:41) would you? Nowhere Speaker 2 (12:42) is more similar to the daunting lunchroom than like a fashion show. Where are you going to sit? Who wants you to sit next to them? Who are you going to say hi to? Are they going to recognize you? Is that girl? You know what I mean? It's like all the teen angst and everything comes like really up to. up to the surface right there when you're in this world of, you know, I mean, I joke about it all the time with my friends in my business who understand, you know, about how similar, how about everybody in the room is just sort of that kid that got bullied or made fun of. And now this is their, their life's work is like proving out that they're cool. Speaker 1 (13:24) I like that. I think it's so interesting this. I mean, I interviewed Elizabeth Day, the writer, and she said something really interesting, which she said, I feel like I knew who I was at four years old. I'm pretty sure she said four years old. And everything since then was like a gradual erosion of that certainty. And what you've said today is that you kind of have a yearning for Pleasantville and your sort of pre-11-year-old self in some ways. We're all... It's the psychologist of inner child thing, isn't it? But it's like, Speaker 2 (14:00) you Speaker 1 (14:01) know, I think that's such an interesting search and a quest that we all have, which is who actually fundamentally are we? And that pre-11-year-old self is so pure, isn't it? It's like the world hasn't got hold of you yet. And so I just wonder, like, do you feel like you've managed to be true to that kid? that you were, do you feel like you still are in Pleasantville? Do you feel like that process, through the therapy and so on, that process has happened for you? Speaker 2 (14:34) I suppose on some level I am always kind of trying to stay as close to that kid as possible. And in fact... any of any struggles that I currently have in life, you know, or I should say any of us have in life. The things that we struggle with the most are often things that we haven't resolved from times. in that sort of formative, those formative years, say from like, I guess from your first 15, 20 years in life, right? Like experiencing things for the first time, love, rejection, fears, and, you know, failures, things like that. And very often, you know, we don't go back and kind of rewrite the story. We only just, our brains make these like, you know, connections. I guess synapses or whatever they are, where like you associate. Speaker 2 (15:36) with X with Y or like, you know, your six-year-old girlfriend dumps you for your best friend. And therefore this is how like you see love for the rest of your life. But we don't really go back there and say, you know what? She just liked the color of his shoes or like she actually liked you more, but she wanted to make you jealous or, you know, whatever it is like the stories, you don't rewrite those stories. So that's the beauty. I think like that's the beauty of childhood, isn't it? My daughter, when she was like four or five years old, would walk out of the house wearing like a ski mask, you know, a Batman top, a wig and like a tutu and push her, you know, her little scooter down the street so she can go, you know, swing in public. and looking like a fucking lunatic but like she had no sense of that just felt right you know what i mean it's so beautiful and then i mean you've you've got girls um and this is true for girls and boys because see i'm seeing it happen with my six-year-old son uh you know suddenly they're aware of themselves and it's so heartbreaking Speaker 1 (16:44) i Speaker 2 (16:44) mean it brings you to tears yeah because like suddenly she wants to scrape her hair back Someone might have commented about her hair or whatever. So anyway, long-winded answer to you is I think I'm aware of that enough in my life to where I think, you know, I really want to stay in touch with that Speaker 1 (17:01) four, Speaker 2 (17:02) five, six, seven, ten-year-old, whatever, as much as I can. Because really, we had it figured out. To Elizabeth's point, we did, you know, we had it figured out. Speaker 1 (17:13) Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:14) And then... then the world comes in yeah and and screws it up Speaker 1 (17:19) yeah yeah um a lot of the people i talk to i i sometimes ask this because i think it's quite instructive and you you know i can see that you're quite an open person which i really appreciate and i think is will make for a really interesting conversation so i wondered if in your childhood there's anything that looking back on it was a particularly difficult experience for you or particularly formative aside from that move Is there anything else that happened that you really kind of carry with you? Speaker 2 (17:47) On the whole, I'd say, and certainly in the putting in perspective of like the six, seven billion people on this planet, like pretty damn lucky. Speaker 1 (17:59) Never Speaker 2 (18:00) wondered where my next meal was coming from. I had two parents, still have both parents, still married somehow. Speaker 2 (18:10) You know, I had love in my life. You know, I was cared for. So, yes, I mean, I had, you know, I was bullied at school. I was sort of small, believe it or not. I mean, didn't really like grow like to be a man and like in the way that like, you know, sometimes people go away for the summer. They come back and they've got like a goatee or whatever. I was just like slow. I was a slow bloomer in like physically. Speaker 2 (18:39) And so I got picked on and I got like, you know, I'm not a religious person at all, but. Speaker 2 (18:46) you know, I got made fun of for being Jewish. I got made fun of, I mean, you name it. I still have it today to some extent where like, I won't, I will sometimes, but like, I try not to wear the same like pair of trousers two days in a row because at that new school, I remember being made fun of, you know, you wore those yesterday kind of. Speaker 1 (19:08) Really? Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:10) And then when I think, and then my dad who grew up with nothing, I was like, I had two pairs of trousers. And three t-shirts. Like, full stop. You know, and I'm, yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I definitely had my sort of, I had my struggles socially. But I was always kind of like able to make fun of myself or take it, kind of. And I think over the years that kind of actually had a pretty detrimental effect on me. Like, it's not healthy to hide your feelings. And if you get really good at hiding your feelings, you don't just hide them from other people,