Joeff Davis

(b. 1970; resides Chicago, IL)

Joeff Davis’ black-and-white portraits of Pat Buchanan, Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole, Al Gore, and George W. Bush reveal facets of each politician you may not have seen before, but the strength of Davis’; vision is revealed in his color pictures of people you don’t know at all. Somewhere between the comic and the controversial, Davis’s photographs document elections, demonstrations, and the political climate in which they occur. Davis identifies with some pictures as self-portraits for their ability to represent his own emotions, while other photographs are marked by sharp satire. Indeed, the framing of his pictures often creates a play between people and signage that sometimes underscores but generally undercuts the messages originally intended by either person or text.

Joeff Davis holds a BA in photography and American history from Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts (1993) and has covered the 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential elections. Commercial clients include Universal Pictures and Late Night with David Letterman, and his pictures have been published in such periodicals as Rolling StonePeopleLA Weekly, and George. In addition to his freelance work, which includes some 450 assignments for The Chicago Tribune, Davis founded Positive Development Project, a free photography program for residents of impoverished neighborhoods in Holyoke, Massachusett. Currently he teaches at College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.