Local man's award-winning, unique images are catching everyone's eyes

When Flat Rock's David Day first learned about Intentional Camera Movement photography, it wasn't long before he had to go out and buy himself a new camera.

"I actually wore my first digital camera out after taking approximately 150,000 photographs of all sorts of things like string, wire, twigs, pieces of leaves, vines from weeds, grasses, slices of fruits and vegetables while experimenting with the process," the 69-year-old retired pharmacist said.

During a typical day now, he takes around 200-500 shots, adjusting both the subject matter lighting and the movement of the camera, to get just the shot he's looking for. He soon started selling his images, and his business has taken off. He said it all started about a year ago when he went to a club talk about the new ICM technique, he said.

"I attended a talk at the local camera club here in Hendersonville where the topic was ICM photography.  The speaker gave a lot of examples where he was producing images with random movements of the camera," Day said.  "During that presentation, it occurred to me that if I could control the lighting on the subject matter, camera movement, and the way that lighting of an image painted across a digital camera sensor that I might be able to generate some really unique abstract images."

He gave it a shot, and he became hooked.

"I spent the better part of a year experimenting with the idea, and in many ways the technique is still evolving.  I started out photographing plastic coated wires arranged in a dark box and couldn't believe the results I got from the first few images I took," he said. "It was like looking at images within images within images and everyone sees something entirely different. As it evolved, I look back on those images, they were just OK compared to what I am doing now... but the results were good enough that I was encouraged to continue experimentation and refinement of the technique."

Day always pictured photography as a hobby, not a career. He earned his bachelor's and masters degrees in pharmacy from West Virginia University and his career ultimately led him to the New York area, where he worked for Pfizer in outcomes research and drug development, he said.

"During that time, my eldest son became interested in photography, and he turned our basement bathroom into a darkroom. I found the science behind it fascinating," he said. "Before long, I too was taking photos and developing them in the basement. Although it was not a career at the time, I participated in quite a few street fairs and competitions in the New England area. The street fairs were a great success, and sales created a good supplemental income source. At that time, I specialized in local landmark photography and some of my best-selling photos were of light houses in New England."

In 2004 he was awarded first place in the photography division of the  Burr Homestead Art Exhibition, and in 2006, first place in the photography division of the Milford, Connecticut  Arts Council annual show.

"Prior to starting in photography, I was doing abstract paintings in the Atlanta area before my job transfer to New York with a number of sales (most exciting was to Scientific Atlanta as they hung the painting in their board room), but I found that too time consuming, given the demands of my job at Pfizer, and that was another factor that compelled me to take up photography... it tends to be more immediate in results.," he said.

Upon retirement in 2016, he moved to Hendersonville and now resides in Flat Rock.

"Prior to moving here, I had been visiting Hendersonville since 1990 as my wife had family in the area," he said.

Having received recognition in the past for his photos, he was pleasantly surprised to see more awards for his ICM work.

"The awards have been a real shocker to me," he said. "There are several ICM communities on Facebook, and on one of them (The Pure ICM Group), I started getting recognition awards along with several other photographers in monthly challenge competitions. Then one day this past year, I did a very simple ICM photograph of a red Japanese Maple Leaf and stem, and that really took off.

"The day after publishing it, I was awarded the monthly Featured Artist Award by the Pure ICM Group on Facebook for that image."

Soon after the Northern Light Gallery in Albuquerque invited him to participate in several of its competitions and to date, he has received four awards from those competitions, including first place for all categories and first place in the Abstract Art division.

"Before winning the awards, I approached just about every gallery in Western North Carolina and Upstate SC, and all but one rejected my work," he said. "That's OK, but the responses were both interesting and consistent: 'good work, but our customers are looking for pictures of the mountains and local scenery.'  At present, the only juried gallery locally that has my work exhibited and on sale is the Art Mob Gallery on E. 4th street in Hendersonville. Most recently, the Northern Light Gallery gave me their Featured Artist Award, and you can see those images online at https://www.northernlightsgallery.com/o-a-r-main/o-a-rdavid-day  That exhibit will be up for the next six months."

Day said he's more focused on growing his business, but it has been a challenge.

"So much has changed in the way people become aware of images available for purchase in the past several years. With the internet, a worldwide customer base is possible, but getting the word out is a real challenge, because so many artists are competing for attention on the internet.  That has required that I learn how to market on social media platforms... as well as produce my work as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can be purchased with cryptocurrency. But now that I am gaining followers on these platforms, things are taking off. To date my most distant sale is to a gentleman in Australia, but so far most of it has been here in the United States. In several cases, I have found individuals that have 'borrowed' my work for their cover photos on Facebook, but that's OK because I am flattered that people would do that."

For more information or to purchase any of Day's images, go to https://ddayphotography.zenfoliosite.com.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Local man's award-winning unique images are catching everyone's eyes