Artist of the Issue: Ian Dailis ’20

Dailis has been capturing photos of landscapes, the crew team and his cat for many years. He was initially inspired at age 10 by his father, who has always been a passionate photographer. “Since whenever I could understand how to take a photo I was interested,” said Dailis. Dailis remembers teaching himself to take a photo. The frst photo Dailis remembers was in a botanical garden in California, near where his grandparents live. The photo was of a fower he saw during the trip. He got many fower photos that day and this initial experience sparked his love for taking photos of nature. He captured his frst photos with an old soviet camera lens, which made the photos look even more intricate and beautiful.

Dailis’s most cherished photo is a portrait of the Los Angeles city skyline. He edited the photo himself as well. For Dailis, editing is a huge part of how a photo turns out. It was a self learning process for him. He really focuses on the detail in a photo and concentrates on getting to the fnishing point of a picture. “I like the puzzle part of the photo- getting the right settings to get the right photo,” Dailis says. He chooses to focus on accuracy rather than on the meaning of the photo or the message that it conveys. Though the editing process requires a lot of concentration, Dailis enjoys it all because it provides joy for him and “because it’s an art.”

Though many of his photos are from trips or home, Dailis has photographed many of the pictures for the crew team in the spring which are then often are featured here, in The Razor. “In addition to taking action shots, Ian also takes many photos of us bonding as a team during long regattas. His photo albums include us playing hackysack and boats taking group naps,” said Theo Tellides ’19, one of Ian’s teammates on the rowing team. It is often diffcult for the sports photographer to get out to crew meets, so Dailis seizes the opportunity to capture some amazing photos for his team. When Dailis isn’t traveling or taking photos for the crew team, he enjoys photographing his cat at home.

Photography spans many different areas in Dailis’s life: travel, school and even his home life. Ever since teaching himself how to photograph and edit, he has used photography as a creative outlet. Though photographing images isn’t a frequent activity for Dailis, when he gets the chance to photograph, the intensive process of taking the photo and editing it is what makes Dailis enjoy it even more.