Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Davis.
Hi Adam, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
So long story a bit less long; I started photography with my iPhone a few days after graduating from high school. My birthday just so happened to be the same day as graduation, so I got to double dip when it came to money from family. There was an AT&T store a few minutes from campus, and after throwing the caps in the air and getting my piece of paper, I declared that the only logical next destination was to the store to get ripped off contractually in the name of having the same technology as my peers. My years of having the knockoff Blackberry and texting to tweet were coming to an end! I downloaded VSCO and Instagram’s first version and started taking pictures around my house, starting in the downstairs bathroom. VSCO used to add the hashtag #VSCOCam to your Instagram captions if you posted directly from their app. One-click of an otherwise mysterious hashtag later, and the world of photography opened up to me in ways that were way more familiar than I’d imagined.
Growing up in New York City, the greatest city in the entire solar system, I would occasionally take trips to Manhattan to site see and go on corny tourist outings with my Mom and younger sibling Imani. Once I clicked the VSCO hashtag and saw these same New York City landmarks (Natural History Museum, Grand Central Terminal, Empire State Building, etc.) documented artistically, I was immediately motivated to go back to create something similar or at least attempt to see these pretty mundane locations with more artistic appreciation.
Throw in four years of obsessive travels around the five boroughs with cameras ranging from iPhones, my old manager’s Canon Rebel T3i, a 5D Mark 3 that “fell off the back of a truck”, a 6D bought at a Subway sandwich shop off Eastern Parkway, and my Dad’s old Canon AE1, and you have a dedication turned to practice. During that same time, I met a girl online who lived on the West Coast and struck up a long-distance relationship after a while. After a few years of back and forth, I decided to move to Los Angeles to attempt to bridge the gap between us and see if a long-term partnership was in the cards for us.
It wasn’t.
The lessons learned from that relationship, paired with an increasingly budding young Black creative community, kept me in LA. Places like the Underground Museum kept me in LA. Reparations Club kept me in LA. I switched from making images digitally to being a true hipster and using film. This meant spending hours on end chatting up the homies working behind the counter at Samy’s Camera off Fairfax and asking random customers to buy me rolls since I couldn’t afford them at the time. With the price hikes, it’s sometimes tough buying them to this day. Thankfully, people saw me enough to help out on occasion. Shoutout to Kenny!
Insert another romantic relationship! We eventually moved in together to what can only be described as the only equivalent to Sidney Lumet’s “The Wiz”, St. Elmo Village. The Village is a 55-year-old black-owned and operated community arts organization in Mid City. One of LA’s many hidden gems for real. My partner at the time, in true LA Black Arts baby fashion, grew up coming to the Village with her siblings and mother as a getaway and a sanctuary. We moved in about two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic started. This shaped where I am today in ways I’m still processing. Between creative blocks, continuous grieving, mental health breakdowns, financial and medical confusion, just about everything was up in the air. One day, during a bout of endless scrolling through social media, I saw a photo from photographer Driely Carter that piqued my interest. It was a tintype.
The same feeling I had when I saw my first hashtag and clicked it out of curiosity applies to this very moment. The same obsession applies too. The rest is literal history.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth? No.
I think the biggest mental hurdle back then was feeling like I was living a double life of a college student and artist. I dropped out of college in my junior year and kept it to myself as I continued going down the rabbit hole of my artistic expression. Most of the people in my family were college-educated and boasted about it at times. I recently told my Mom and of course she already knew that I didn’t finish. Not only did she know, but she’d been openly supportive of my life as an artist the entire time. I don’t think being a Black artist is ever going to be smooth. No matter where you are. The world is currently designed for it to be a difficult experience. Especially given the fact that artists of color typically shed light on what is happening around the globe to other oppressed people.
Part of being an artist, especially a Black one, is assessing if you can actually live with yourself or in proximity with others knowing that you have something to express and are actively choosing to suppress it. Lack of financial support, lack of Ivy League status, lack of belief in your ability from everyone around you, lack of mentorship or direction, etc. can all be obstacles in one’s way. Morality and ethics find their way into this conversation as well. Any of my struggles along the way would be multiplied by the dozen if I were Trans or a Black Woman or Gay so I can’t really complain that much if at all.
I’m fortunate to be surrounded by people who are supportive and more importantly in my opinion, curious to see the ideas I claim to be working towards making tangible exist in the world. One thing I’ve learned over the years of making things, especially in Los Angeles, is that we truly do have the power to curate our circle of friends for the better without feeling the pressure of having to know the “who’s who” of the art world. People who will challenge you to be a better artist. To be a better person! I struggled with figuring that out early on during my tenure in LA. Now that those obstacles are behind me, I’m fortunate enough to even say that I’m eagerly awaiting the newest obstacles, knowing that I’m not alone.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I photograph Black people. Almost exclusively. 99.9% of my images are comprised of people of African descent. With my start in street photography in NYC, I’ve tried my hand at just about every “genre” of photography there is. Nowadays, I find myself obsessing over portraits, specifically of the analog variety. Tintypes and any other original form of image-making are what I am attempting to master. Or at least advance in some way.
These kinds of images set me apart from others, but not in a competitive way at all actually. I’m incredibly competitive with myself and don’t let that energy permeate its way into my daily interactions with other creatives. My work sets me apart from others knowing that most creatives in my generation don’t always consider the work they’re doing to be a body of work to begin with. Building of archives is becoming a lost art. My work actually brings people together, anyone who has been in a studio with me around the country can attest to the very familiar and familial environment I strive to build. That’s what I’m most proud of. Creating spaces where people feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable. Great company, great food and drink, the space smells a certain way. A playlist is doing its job to satisfy your ears. The images only come out great when you are fully bought into the idea that you are in a true studio. I’m proud that my years working in customer service have found an ample alternative application.
The project I’m grateful to be working on currently is called Black Magic. At its core, I’m looking to create the largest contemporary archive of Black American and global African diasporic tintype portraits ever. Any other creative offerings shared alongside this very ambitious mission are opportunities to play across mediums such as filmmaking, ceramics, carpentry, design (both graphic and industrial), and any other that strikes me. I’m also super lucky to collaborate often with the people I get to photograph!
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck makes up a great deal of where I am today. I’m not one of those people that refuse to say they were lucky or that someone else sparked something in them. I’ve almost given up trying to explain the alignment I’ve witnessed in my life and in the lives of those around me. Mostly because it takes the magic out of the experiences. I’m lucky to have been alive during the Deana Lawson show at the Underground Museum a few years ago when the lights were out, and we were taking in these massive portraits by candlelight. Whispers crawled around the room, setting everyone at ease. That experience alone set the tone for the next few years to follow.
If I were to consider my life to be a movie and this interview to be a Grammy or Emmy award-winning speech, there would be too many people to thank and express gratitude to. I’m EXTREMELY lucky. Above all else, I’m lucky to be alive. Moments like that Deana show, or any random day at Rep Club, the moment I stumbled upon the first tintype I’d see, are all moments I’m lucky to have experienced. There have been too many moments to count where I did not want to be here anymore.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blackmagic.show
- Instagram: @admdav
Image Credits
Rey Emmanuel Robles (2022)
