Photo prints, Blackmarket Sawtelle 2025.
“What started as a dream of being a photographer transformed my life.”
This exhibition is a retrospective of the first 10 years of Nicolas’ journey into becoming a photographer.
12 still images, 8:50 video, original song by Jack Pribyl and Nicolas Amber
A single moment, fleeting as it may be, can change you forever.
Getting in that taxi. Rounding that corner. Climbing that rooftop. Just saying yes. I was 16 years old when I first clicked the shutter of a digital camera, when I first said yes to photography and began capturing these moments. It immediately expanded my world.
At the time I played video games for 10-12 hours a day, and loved it. I met most of my friends in those digital worlds, forging faceless camaraderie on late night battlefields. It was before a trip to Florida, where I’d finally get to meet many of them, that I bought my first camera. I sought to simply document the memories, but what I found instead was a new love for adventure, even deeper connection with people, and a burning curiosity for making photos that captured a feeling so unfamiliar I couldn’t describe it at the time.
I said yes a lot more over the following 10 years. First to a job, chasing my dream of holding a camera and moving to LA. Then to the moments that made it, traveling to over 20 countries and meeting countless amazing people. This show houses images from my journey through gamer, filmmaker, photographer, human being. Images as an attempt to speak a language where words fail. It’s a feeling I still can’t describe, though I’ve never been great with words, so I’ll use my photography instead.