Biography
My name is David M. M. Taffet. I am both a passionate photographer and a parallel entrepreneur. I consider myself Intrepid, Immersed, Inspired, and Invisible.
Banksy once quipped:
"I don't know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower."
While maintaining a hold on my "superpowers," I choose to reveal the following:
My career has spanned law, investment banking, private equity, not-for-profits, turnarounds, buy-outs, management, retail, and real estate. Along the way, I've had the great fortune of surviving spectacular failures and, occasionally, enjoying modest successes. I worked through college and law school, built my own businesses, met the payroll needs of hundreds of employees, raised enormous amounts of debt and equity on behalf of my own ventures and on behalf of others', turned others' enterprises around and worked internationally in varied industries with geographically dispersed operations.
Both in business and in photography, I have always embraced discomfort.
In that spirit, my photography never relies on surreptitious methods, such as photographing from a distance or in a disguised manner. I never photograph without having announced my presence and securing approval, tacit or otherwise.
I will not photograph people or events that I do not have the courage to explicitly engage. My respect for the moment and for the people in it requires that I broadcast my intention to capture an image.
Paradoxically, to be invisible requires intentional consent--a loud crack of visibility.
Without this, I do not consider myself worthy of keeping an image, regardless of how spectacular or profound it might ultimately prove.
When I can muster the strength of character to embrace my invisibility, to delight in my proximity, to acknowledge the intimacy I have been afforded and to view the world through my fixed, wide-angle lens, the rewards are profound:
All of life—vanities, desires, insecurities, darkness, naïveté, fantasies, poverty, joy, despair, hate, love and isolation—embraces in a rugby scrum of human frailty and dances in solidarity across my viewfinder, bouncing, swaying and jerking to an authentic, rhythmic beat.
As my shutter finger drops, my camera freezes the ephemeral dance for eternity,
Unleashing my heart’s soulful song:
An invisible, but palpable anthem of praise.
