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Photographer Sam Davis strives to create images that connect with his childhood imagination, and he accomplished that with his dinosaur-laden exhibit – created using pinhole cameras – on display at Amarillo College’s Southern Light Gallery.
“My images are the result of overlapping sources of inspiration and research and always maintain connection to (my) childhood imagination,” said Davis, an assistant professor of photography at Southern Utah University.
“These photos represent a ‘what if’ in the form of unknown/undiscovered images of dinosaurs in their habitat in the Southwest.”
Southern Light Gallery is located on the first floor of the Ware Student Commons at AC’s Washington Street Campus, and Davis’s exhibit, titled Lagerstätte, will be on display there through Nov. 17.
Davis custom built his own pinhole cameras to create the images in the exhibit. One is a panoramic roll-film pinhole, while the other is a 5x7 pinhole that accommodates glass plate negatives.
“Photographically, and as an educator, I am interested in the history of photography as it relates to both truth and also historical constructs in the form of evidence used to support historical facts,” Davis said.
“I’m keenly interested in the earliest days of photography, when there existed what is termed ‘simultaneous discovery,’ a time when many different inventors, adventurers and scientists were making similar discoveries at the very same moment, all of which led to the emergence of photography as we know it.”
Originally from Pensacola, Fla., Davis received his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Florida and completed a master’s degree with an emphasis on photography and sculpture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His list of exhibitions and publications is extensive.
For more information about the Sam Davis photo exhibit or the Southern Light Gallery, please contact René West, associate professor of photography, at rwest@actx.edu or 806-345-5654.
-Amarillo College