by Emily Luger 

For those who grew up vacationing on the North Carolina coast, recognizable scenes resound in memory: sun-kissed freckled faces, teenagers loitering at boardwalk hangouts, families at the arcade, Confederate flag bikinis and rolling dunes.

For Patrick Davison, associate professor of visual communication at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and an out-of-state transplant, the scenes are art.

“Redneck Riviera,” Davison’s exhibit at Duke University’s Louise Jones Brown Gallery from Feb. 28 until April 2, showed his talent to capture those all-too-familiar scenes that are also all-too-quickly becoming a thing of the past.

The exhibit documented economic and cultural changes along the Carolina Beach boardwalk from 2001 through 2006 as new development threatened the beach’s distinctive micro-culture.

Davison joined the school in 2001 after winning the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in photography along with the rest of the photo staff of the Rocky Mountain News for coverage of the Columbine High School shooting. In 2006, he received the Edward Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching, an honor bestowed for the additions he made to photojournalism at the University, including PhotoNight and the Carolina Photojournalism Workshop.

But it has been his work at Carolina Beach that has brought Davison recent distinction outside of the University. “When I first moved here, I was looking for a project,” he said. “And I needed a project my kids could be a part of.” Davison received a Junior Faculty Development Grant and spent five years capturing the beach scenes for the collection.

The project was a family affair. “My kids grew up on the boardwalk,” Davison said.

The exhibit opening included a reception with young violinists from the Duke University String School and drew photography students and fans alike.

“Last year he showed us the exhibit in class,” said Crystal Street, a visual communication major at the school. Several students from Davison’s studio class attended the opening.

Melissa Williamson, a senior in the school and an assistant photo editor for The Daily Tar Heel, has taken four of Davison’s classes.

“At first he was sort of intimidating,” Williamson said. “But the more I got to know him and the more I got excited about photojournalism in general, the more I admired him. He’s a really good photographer, but putting that aside, he cares a lot about his students because he wants them to be just as successful.”

For more on this project and other work by Davison, visit patdavisionphotography.com.
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Emily Luger graduated from the school’s news-editorial sequence in May.