The photographic vision
of
Dave Levingston

Dave Levingston is among the truly talented photographers who once worked in Newark.
I asked him to send for publication at the Newark Tea Party his favorite photo, and this is what he sent.

 

Here’s what Dave said about how the image was created:

“I chose the photo that I did for the cover of my book, “The Nude in Nature.”  And there's a story about that photo.  I had it in my head for a long time.  I'd tried to do it while I was working with different models, but was never able to get just what I was after.  Finally I realized I needed to concentrate just on that image if I wanted to get it. 

"I knew a model in Asheville, NC, who I knew could pull it off.  I called her, explained exactly what I had in mind and told her to look around and find the right mountain stream (she hikes all over the Smokeys on her own) and to tell me the day and I'd be there.  She did that, I drove down, we hiked to the stream she had in mind.  Rejected it, hiked to another stream, hiked around it for a while, picked the spot, she got in the freezing water, did the perfect pose and I got exactly the photo I was after.
 
“From time to time photos pop into my head fully formed.  I don't know where they come from.  But once they are there, I have to find a way to turn the mental image into a print or the image just stays there in my head bothering me.  This is one of those images.  I also think it embodies fairly well what I'm trying to do with my figures in nature work.”


I met Dave when he started working part-time in The Advocate’s photo department while still a student at Licking Valley. After high school he worked off and on at the newspaper while majoring in photography as a student at Ohio University. There, he concentrated, in part, on the marvelous imagery of ballet.

Dave has worked as a PR manager for the U.S. Air Force for many years. Local folks may remember his front-page statements about (what I’ve always called) Newark Air Force Station, before it went away.

Dave specializes in the photography of nude women in ultra-aesthetic environments.

His photos have with regularity been displayed in galleries and magazines and in addition to his book “The Nude in Nature,” he offers calendars to collectors at http://www.lulu.com/wayward.

A critic has called his work “a pure focus on form, space and light, a true modernistic artistic approach.”

And I say, yeah, but it’s a lot more than that. You must look past all that words can report and peer deeply into these photos to see the shapes in near-hidden and/or boldly displayed environments, notice the light and shadows and what they do in these photos, as they embrace and caress the human female form. Only then can you see for yourself.

At his web site you’ll get a notion of the scope and depth of this photographer whose launch pad was Newark Ohio... http://art2view.com/DaveLevingston/
Art Galleries

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