Jack Davison: Understanding Photography

He studied English Literature at Warwick University, so it’s not surprising that Jack Davison has a knack for books. The 28 year old photographer just got his own book: a photography book called Photographs. ‘I like holding books in my hands,’ Davison says. ‘I like the tactility of a physical item. I was raised with looking at pictures on screens and phones. I take in so many pictures on a daily basis, but it’s not the same with books. I love browsing a photography book, I like the feeling of turning pages and the way a book ages.’

It’s the perfect start of a MENDO conversation about photography: a shared passion for books. That passion started when Davison was still a child, he says: ‘a couple of weeks ago, I found some journals I made when I was eight years old. They had pictures in them that I took of animals.’ It was around this time that Davison got into photography. ‘I really got into taking pictures when I was in charge of the family camera. I always wanted to paint and draw as a kid, and I wanted to be a zoologist or a painter. I very quickly realized that painting is very difficult, and so I would stop drawing and picked up the camera, instead.’

Twenty years later, Jack Davison has done exhibitions, has a first book which can be found in stores around the world and on top of that, he is also a sought-after fashion photographer. Davison got the attention of magazine editors and photography agents when he showed them the pictures he took on a 10,000 mile long road trip through the United States. These 26 pictures, each taken in a different state, would eventually lead to several publications and exhibitions.

Although the last paragraph might sound impressive, Davison waves it away. ‘I accidentally find things, which then become part of my photography work,’ he says. ‘When I take photos of people, it’s all about the person who is doing a certain thing that makes a picture interesting. It’s not really me. He or she can move in a certain way, or fiddle with a bit of mirror – then I often realize: oh, there is the picture. The people I photograph often bring these things to me.’

For Jack Davison, it’s all about experimentally capturing certain moments in time, accidentally found. He can see a beam of sunlight that works for him, or spot a reflection that he’d like to use in a photograph. ‘What I like about photography, is that the things and the environments around me create certain situations and pictures. I’m always very aware of my surroundings.’

Davison’s unusual way of working has a lot to do with the fact that he never studied photography – he didn’t learn to shoot photos in an academic environment. Davison doesn’t like to follow rules or to play by the book, as he was never given any given boundaries. That experimental way of photographing can especially be seen in his free work. Photos taken of pictures, scans of scans, photos that are heavily edited, both digitally and in the darkroom. Davison doesn’t use a single camera, like most photographers do – he happily switches from his iPhone to an analogue to a DSLR camera.

‘Because I didn’t formally have an education,’ Davison says, ‘there’s still loads of things for me to learn. I’ve never settled comfortably, because I’m never really comfortable with what I’m doing. So I’m always thinking: okay, how can I do things differently, or make something better. I have to keep pushing things and making my process more difficult and more experimental. The experimental stuff is harder to replicate. I want to keep things exciting for me as well.’

MENDO’s Roy first saw Davison’s pictures in 2013, during Hel Ved’s Creative Review at Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam. The two kept in touch – Roy is even mentioned in Davison’s Photographs book. ‘What I find particularly interesting,’ Roy says about Davison’s work, ‘is that he forces me to really look. Normally, you can walk past some pictures, and you see what they’re about at a glance.’ To Roy, Davison’s work is humoristic, mysterious and full of contradictions. ‘His photos are raw, but clean at the same time,’ Roy continues. ‘His work is layered. I really have to take my time to take in each individual image. He’s one of the best photographers of this moment.’

Remarks like Roy’s are ways for Jack Davison to discover new angles on his own work, says Davison: ‘Every time that I do exhibitions or when I talk with people about my work, I realize that my influences come from a collection of older photographs that I found online. Talking about my pictures changes the way I look at my work, and it’s very interesting to hear different perspectives on my own photographs. People can say: “they’re all this sort of thing”, and then I go: “oh, yeah, indeed, maybe they are!” It puts my pictures in a different context. I’m still learning to understand my own work, through exhibitions.’

After having his 26 States series highlighted by the British Journal of Photography and the New York Times Magazine, he had his first solo exhibition in Amsterdam’s FOAM photography museum in 2016. ‘My photography is very one image-focused,’ Davison says. ‘I’m not drawn to work where it takes ten pictures to tell a story.’ And so his first solo exhibition became an exhibition with only single images. ‘I prefer to use a single frame to say something. For me, the learning process was finding strength in a single picture.’

Just like there were only a few texts visible at his FOAM exhibition, there are no captions in his first book, Photographs. As the title suggests, it’s a book full of single images. Davison: ‘I want other people to find narratives and make decisions about the book. That’s why there are no captions in there. I don’t want people to be kind of influenced by a certain setting or a certain time. I’d much rather have that people fill in those blank spaces themselves. There’s a picture in the book, and a lot of people think it is taken in Africa, when it’s actually taken in London. I like that there’s space for people to make their own decisions.’

Davison admits that until recently, he used ‘to struggle’ with the idea of ‘not having a story’. ‘It felt like no one was getting what I was doing,’ he says. Then he laughs: ‘And I didn’t really know what I was doing, either. I’m just trying to take pictures, really. That is the basis. The meaning comes in later, when people ask you: what is this for, and why is this here? I just like taking pictures.’

‘I used to worry when people said that there’s no clear storyline in Photographs,’ Davison says, ‘but I don’t think that the lack of a storyline is a problem, as I made the book for me. So I have a physical record and so that I can try to understand my work through a print form. Like I said, I’ve always been making books for myself. The book, with the single pictures, is very photographic and very much about photography itself.’ But Davison also likes the idea that others can now browse through his photos – they can have the tactile experience he likes so much himself. Davison: ‘Part of me did think: if people would only look at these pictures on a phone, are they really looking at them? How long will that image be there, in people’s minds? I’ve always loved the idea that my photos are on people’s shelves or on people’s walls, instead of them being on their phones.’