Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Gabriel.
Hi Eric, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up with a dad photographer and a mom hair stylist, my dad taught me photography as a very young child it instantly became my passion! Spending the day with my day shooting landscapes then coming home and developing the film shooting with my dad’s Leica M3 rangefinder watching the film develop in his darkroom was like and still magic to me! I lived with my mom because they were separated when I was three months old my mom convinced me to do hair because they offered it at my school it was a free program I would go to school for a few hours than study a carrier for free.. so I did, even tho I hated hair! My mom always owned her own salons and I hated everything about it!.. in a small town in Northern California “Nevada City” is where grew up with hippys and rednecks basically! The day I graduated from high school was the day I moved to SF for about eight months worked at a salon called Features very cutting edge… my dream was always to go backpack and explore Europe … so I drove across the country with a friend of mine to do that and ended up in NY with $189.00 to my name!
I was not going anywhere! So my friend left without me for three months and I was sick in NY I was still 17 years old, I had never thought of NY ever! I got a job the first day at a salon called “Girl loves Boy” in Soho in the late 80’s it was very hardcore we used to burn the hair with a torch instead of scissors and so chemical haircuts and neon deadlock extensions… that sort of thing squatted in an abandoned building in alphabet city till I could afford to start subletting “long story short” A famous hairdresser at the time “Oribe” was walking down the street in Soho and saw a girl on the street and said to her “I love you hair cut who did it” and she said “ oh this guy named Eric Gabriel. And I’m on my way to him right now to get a haircut. So he followed her there to meet me and saw me doing some cuts, at the time I was only using a straight-edge razor, that was my style at the time he happen to know the receptionist and told her that his agent would contact me because he was opening up his first salon uptown… so Elaine the receptionist schooled me on who Oribe was and his agent called and said they wanted to put me on some test shoots so I did two one for wild hair and one conservative hair… and when he says my work which was crazy now that I look back on it! like what was I thinking! The wild hair looked The Swamp Thing and the conservative one looked like a bird of paradise!! Lol… so they took me on….
So some of the first photographers I worked with was Steven Meisel, Ervin Penn, and Richard Avedon… I got my first American Vouge cover before Oribe and at that point, he had every other Vouge cover except an American Vouge cover!!! He was extremely excited for me! It was with Ervin Penn… Elaine Erwin was the model on the cover… they flew me on the Concorde to Paris to shoot the collections with Patrick Démarchelier and Steven Kline and that was it! I finally got to Europe but not the way I had planned! My carrier was set… traveling all over the world working with everyone… but always taking pictures. In Midtown NYC there used to be rental dark rooms you can rent by the hour and I would develop my film. photography always keeps me grounded and focused on what my true passion always was…. I left hair about five years ago and now finally a working photographer x.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes changing your carrier is always challenging, you have to really prove yourself! Most people don’t like change and some people don’t like to see other people changing so it’s an interesting battle but fun! I love to change is good!! And inspiring I love to create… I feel fulling rounded as a person now, this is who I am… I feel like I just came out of the closet! Ha! I was really frustrated with my one little job… I am much more than just the hair I always see the big picture… I’m an image maker.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well, I have always had my own style and have always loved fashion and imagery, I’m a creator and love to work with other people who are on the same page. My images are reflections of life… it’s my passion to capture a moment with people and atmospheric beauty… beauty is everywhere.
What are your plans for the future?
Future plan is to keep going forward as I always have, I love my new chapter in my life right now and living in LA.
Contact Info:
- Other: Instagram @ericgabrielxx
