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Elliott O’Donovan’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 neovintage Rolex GMT-Master II, a Tudor Black Bay 58, his trusty IWC Mark XVIII, and a Tissot dress watch that Elliott says really represents the start of his collection.
“”This Tissot was a gift that my mom gave me. It was a birthday present, not an overly significant birthday, but she got it at a secondhand shop,” said Elliot. “It’s a beautiful piece, but I fell in love with it because my mom gave it to me.”
All of Elliott’s watches represent similar nostalgic moments. The Black Bay was purchased just before Elliott’s two-year-old son was born and he got the GMT-Master II and Mark XVIII to celebrate career accomplishments.
“I’m getting to a point in life where I’m not interested in watches as a status symbol. I’m interested in them from a craftsmanship level, and the ways in which they’re symbolic to me,” said Elliot. “ I can’t think of a better way to symbolize these things, life milestones, than with a watch.”
It’s a way many people approach watches, and one that makes a great deal of sense for a photographer. Photographs, like Elliott’s watches, are a way of remembering a moment in time.
The watch industry has picked up on that connection — Elliott says he even gets targeted ads of photographers wearing watches — and there have even been recent photography-inspired watch releases, like the Nodus Obscura, which features an exposure gauge on the bezel, and Leica’s lineup of watches, some of which take design inspiration from cameras. (Elliott loves Leica, but still prefers their cameras to their watches: “If I’m paying $10k for a Leica, it’s going to have to be a camera,” he said laughing.)
Elliott chalks the photographer/watch collector intersection up to photographers’ appreciation for “solid, beautiful, timeless engineering” in their equipment. It’s those same qualities he finds himself fascinated by in watches, with a preference for “brilliant engineering without like an in your face kind of overt class-signaling.”
“I think that just getting older and more comfortable with myself, my viewpoint has changed to the point where I’m less interested in the everyday person just looking at me and saying, ‘oh, he’s got a Rolex,’” said Elliot. “Because I don’t really care anymore what people think about me in that way. I’m not seeking that level of validation. I’m very comfortable with myself in who I am as a person. The only person I really want validation from is my wife and my son.”
His son may only be two, but he has already approved of Elliott’s choice in watches, particularly the IWC Mark XVIII.
“He’s always like ‘daddy’s watch, daddy’s watch.’ And he makes me take it off of my wrist, and he puts it on his little wrist and he runs around wearing it. And so this will be the watch 100% that like when he graduates high school if he wants it,” said Elliot, before thinking for a moment and then adding: “Maybe college, I don’t know that I’ll give it up that soon.”
