Photographer Greg Davis in Paupa, New Guinea
In 2004, Greg Davis quit his desk job and sold his belongings to travel the world for 14 months. He used a $400 point-and-shoot Olympus camera to document his journey. After showing his photos to his girlfriend upon returning home, he realized he had a natural talent for photography. Many of Davis’s images have been recognized by the art community nationwide, and he has just signed a contract with National Geographic’s Image Collections.
Are your photos usually taken spontaneously, or do you spend a while setting up your shots?
GD: Ninety-nine percent of my work is a brief moment in a time. There’s the shot, and there it goes. I can’t ask the person to redo a situation that I saw but missed. The moment’s there. I’m either present or I don’t capture that image. I miss a lot of shots, and that’s okay. I wasn’t [supposed] to get that shot.
Are most of your photos portraits?
GD: I do like the portrait. There’s something about the people that I have captured. They captured me first. Whatever was in their spirit, their soul, their eyes, the way that they looked at me, the way they presented themselves to me, the way that they were open to me, allowed me to capture what it is that you see.
I read on your Web site about a woman in Vietnam who had a profound impact on you. Can you tell me about her?
GD: Nine months into my one-year trip my life was literally reborn the moment I crossed paths with the “The Blanket Weaver,” which is what I call the image of her. It’s an image of two hands—one green, one blue, colored by the dye from her work. I captured the image in the mountains of Vietnam on a remote trail outside of a village called Sapa. I took one photograph, smiled and walked on my way. I had no idea that that particular moment was going to define these last five years of my life.
