We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel Huszar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.

Daniel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My most recent project Bayview Chronicle is quite meaningful to me. It is a book of concept art for a film idea I’ve had for a while. It examines themes of greed, ambition and integrity through the lens of a hit-and-run and the attempted cover-up afterwards.

The project began in early 2023 as a series of long-exposure night photographs of the more gritty and urban parts of Toronto, the city where I was born and raised. At the time the city was in the midst of several compounding (and still ongoing) crises – homelessness, crime, fiscal and infrastructural instability. In those dark winter days there was a palpable hostility in the air, and I felt motivated to turn my lens back to the city and re-examine. Because Toronto rarely plays itself in media, I recast the city as Bayview – our Gotham.

From this the story just slowly developed. I decided to tell part of it through stills and take my photography in a new narrative direction I haven’t really tried before. The project just launched with a week-long gallery showcase, and the response to the idea has been very encouraging. I’m really interested to see how I can scale the idea up.

Daniel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Daniel Huszar, but you can call me Dan or Danny.

I’m a Photographer and Creative Producer. I’ve had a passion for Photography since I was maybe 12 or 13 but I started taking it more seriously about four years ago. As a Producer I’ve worked on a few short films and media projects, kind of straddling that role and the role of Production Manager. I started taking these roles while I was in Film School, and its led to several cool projects since I graduated in 2022.

In my Photographic practice I work almost exclusively in the film medium. This was a practical choice at first – my digital camera broke and I wasn’t in the position to replace it, so I just switched to using my film camera for most things. Over time I’ve come to love the aesthetic qualities and more manual process involved in shooting this medium. I’ve been lucky enough to work at two Photo labs over the past two years as well, which helped keep the costs down and allowed me to push the boundaries of the medium even more.

I think my creative pursuits benefit from this intersection of mediums I work in and I can draw skills from each. For example, my experience in Producing and Management roles on shoots definitely helps me plan and execute photographic shoots with particular efficiency. I’m keen to work on more multidisciplinary projects in the future – things where I can bring my photography, producing and a developing design skills together to really push an idea to its full potential.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are so many public/open calls for entries being posted online all the time! Especially for photographers and/or visual artists. The trick is just finding them. Its a classic problem in our day and age – we have all these resources and information at our fingertips that sifting through and finding it (or it finding you) becomes the challenge.

Instagram is a good platform for finding these (for better or worse). At first I think it was just tracking my web browsing on certain websites (more on that in a minute) so it started displaying various calls as story ads. The trick is interaction. I interacted with all of them – opened them in my browser, clicked through to the post, saved the post, even if the call wasn’t one I was eligible or interested in – now almost all the ads displayed to me are calls for entries, and my explore page is littered with them too.

There are also a few key websites I’ve been checking on periodically for things to submit to. callforentries.com and forphotographersonly.com are good ones. Entrythingy.com is another gloriously vintage looking website where some cool stuff gets posted. For my fellow Canadians http://akimbo.ca/ is a good local and national page where calls for entries and submissions get posted, but also news and exhibitions in the Canadian arts scene.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me its the way each project and pursuit brings new experiences. Getting to be consistently challenged, inventive and responsive while making a living is very powerful. Of course, the flip side to that is the relative lack of security and the reality of always looking for whats next, but I think I would rather have the joy of an ever changing work environment than a consistent, secure (boring?) repetitive career.

Another great thing about being a working creative is meeting new people through work. Cliched thing to say but very true. Nobody is boring and everyone brings something unique to the table. Some of my best friends are other artists I’ve met on projects, and seeing our relationships develop alongside our creative careers feeds my soul.

Contact Info:

• Website: danielhuszar.com
• Instagram: @est__daniel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-huszar-to/

Image Credits
Lead image credit – Briana Leung all other photos are mine.