The Universe by Malik Davis

Issue 1 49

I am a self-portrait, landscape, concert, portrait, and wedding photographer. I first started getting into photography after I came home from being on tour with the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps as their videographer and decided that I should get in touch with the photo side of things to show some versatility in this field.

While I was venturing down the photography path, I discovered that you could do self-portrait photography! And I never really got into self-portrait photography until the Geoge Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests, because it gave me a healthy outlet to express my frustrations about the whole situation, and give people a small glimpse as to what it’s like to be black in America. When I created that series, I never intended to keep going with self-portraits, because I said what I had to say with them and thought that was it. But then I came across a number of self-portrait photographers on Twitter and a handful on Instagram and I was obsessed with the different styles that each person had. I decided to come up with my own style which involves colored lighting and different overlays and kind of base each photo on either a song lyric or some emotion that I’m trying to convey. Usually I end up with 4-5 versions of one photo or several and send them to friends to give me feedback on. But the real inspiration behind the self-portraits is the band Coldplay, The Weeknd, Daniel Caesar, and any artist, photographers included, who are emotionally vulnerable in their craft.

Malik Davis (he/him) is based in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana.
www.malikdavisphotos | @malikdavisphotos