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When asked why he chose to attend
Millsaps, Davis cites no master plan beyond the fact that
it offered a good education. Though he spent his entire
career as an executive with one of the world’s most
successful corporations, he values his liberal arts base
over any specific business course from his undergraduate
days. “I believe strongly in having a broad education. Arts, history, religion, everything. I want to be around people who can talk about anything and everything. That’s an important part of our trips too,”says Davis. Davis and his wife Lisa have taken 15 trips over the past 18 months. When traveling in developing-world countries, Davis prefers guided tours by Aberchrombie and Kent and similar tour companies. “In African game preserves, we travel by jeep and feel very safe. I use a 600mm lens for the wildlife, which is close enough.” Davis is able to take so many high-quality images because he knows exactly what he wants before he ever arrives. “I gather 60 to 80 pages before each trip from various sources, and they are embedded before I go. I know what to shoot, when to shoot it, how to shoot it. And I pack lots of film!” He also carries three of the five Nikon cameras he owns. His philosophy is simple: one for closeups, one for distance, one for the likelihood that the first or second one won’t work. As Einstein said, chance favors the prepared mind. “People ask what I plan to do with my slides, and I don’t have an answer. I take them mainly for my own personal enjoyment. Anticipating the slides is almost equal to the anticipation of the trips. I don’t enter professional contests. I just show them to friends and family, then store them,” he says. “I didn’t grow up near national parks, which are America’s monuments, so that’s what I seek out – great beauty.” From Turkey to Tanzania, from Canada to Katmandu, Albert Davis has seen our world in its grandeur and in its ruin, in its brokenness and in its rebuilding. But, above all, he has seen it in its beauty, its great transcendent beauty. Fifty years ago, a young boy named Albert Davis dreamed of seeing the world. And he has. But he found it passing, ever passing. So he started taking pictures. And along the way he learned a great secret about life: that which cannot be arrested in flight, can still be captured in motion. Maps. It started with maps. PREVIOUS PAGE | PAGE 2 OF 6 | NEXT PAGE |
