Gomma Photography Grant 2023
Trembling Earth
Photographer
David Walter Banks
Trembling Earth
23 Feb, 2024
‘Trembling Earth’ injects documentary photography with fantastical visual elements to convey both the factual and the spiritual value of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. At 438,000-acres, the refuge is one of the largest intact freshwater ecosystems in the world, and is home to more than 600 species of wild plants, 200 species of birds, 100 species of amphibians and reptiles, and 35 species of fish, including rare and endangered species. Already affected by climate change, and now under impending threat by industry, this unique place needs further protection before it is lost to future generations. Despite designation as a National Wildlife Refuge, North America’s largest blackwater swamp is still under threat by the titanium mining industry. The sum of Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp is more than the flora and fauna that call it home — there is an unmistakable yet ineffable mystical quality. Through the use of conceptual in-camera techniques, without the use of post-production effects, this work represents both truth and what I consider the unquantifiable spiritual presence of this primordial space.
About the photographer
David Walter Banks
David Walter Banks is a photographer and artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work ranges from stylized conceptual portraiture to environmental-issue based documentary photography with a heavy aesthetic influence of magic realism. Banks has been interviewed by PDN, Rangefinder, TIME’s Lightbox, aPhotoEditor, and CNN about his work. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection at the New York Public Library. Banks has lectured at Western Kentucky University, Ohio University, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, University of Miami, SCAD, UNC Chapel Hill, and UMass. His clients have included Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, Apple, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Geographic among others.
