Portrait of a Watch Collector: Photographer Elliott O’Donovan
Elliott O’Donavan’s go-to watch is his IWC Mark XVIII. His go-to camera is his Leica Q3. The DC-based photographer has taken portraits of seemingly everyone in town. Corporate executives, activists, politicians, journalists - his client list is a veritable who’s who of Washington, DC, with famous faces like CNN’s Jake Tapper and former Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth popping up on Elliott’s Instagram feed. And he sees a lot of overlap in his profession and his approach to collecting watches. “The way that I look at watches really describes the way that I photograph portraits. I don’t want my portraits to look dated. I don’t want them to look like something that was shot in the early aughts or in a certain decade. I want it to be like, ‘He could have taken that shot yesterday, or that could be a shot from 1960 or 1970,’” said Elliott in an interview with Worn & Wound. Elliott’s interest in watches traces back to the digital Casios his dad wore when Elliott was a child. “That was very much just for utility,” said Elliot. “But also to me, it had, like a certain element of style to it.” That interest in his father’s watch became an opportunity for father-son bonding, with Elliott recalling that his dad would take him out to buy inexpensive watches starting when he was about seven. “I would usually get the same watch that he had,” said Elliot. Over the years, his tastes evolved and his budget grew. Today, Elliott has a neovintag...
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