photograph by adam david
Earl “The Pearl” Banks performs at Blues City Cafe.
He fell in love with writing first, in kindergarten; photography next, as an adult; and Memphis last, when a series of trips culminated in the realization that the Bluff City was where Adam David wanted to stay. Though his love for Memphis, its culture, and its people, bloomed last, it might be the strongest of his affections, as evidenced by the care with which he captures the scenes of his adopted city in his new photography collection, Memphis: Juke Joints, Civil Rights, and Soulful Nights (Fonthill).
photograph courtesy adam david
Adam David
The book is a flâneur’s guide to the Bluff City, glimpsed through street photography and portraiture; the images are threaded together by essays by David. The result is a collection made stronger by the diversity of its components — but that wasn’t entirely the plan. As often happens, a series of accidents and surprises led David to his current style.
“I was in New York, where I’m from, and going through a breakup,” the photographer says. “I started taking pictures of couples walking down the street holding hands, or sitting on a bench sharing a moment.”
David now feels that his photography at the time tended toward the maudlin and saccharine; in the brief flashes of love he saw between strangers, he found reflections of his own recently ended relationship. Though he found no answer to what makes love work out, or not, he came to a realization about the power of photography as a means for storytelling.
“I noticed, ‘Oh, I’m telling an entire story. It’s encompassed in this picture,’” he says. “I just kept taking pictures and kept taking pictures and kept taking pictures, and that’s been my thing ever since.”
After his breakup, David remembers, “I floundered around New York for a couple more years, then I moved to D.C.” David visited Memphis off and on between longer stints in Baltimore and Phoenix. None of the other cities felt quite right to him, and, with Covid and the sudden abundance of remote work opportunities, David began to think more expansively about his next location.
“I visited Memphis over Labor Day weekend and realized, ‘I think I want to move here. This is great,’” David says. That trip to the Bluff City happened in 2020, and the advent of remote work meant he could live in the city full-time. “The people are a little eccentric. It reminded me a little bit of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the early ’90s when the artists’ community started to move there.”
Memphis is home to an inspiring group of photographers, David says, noting that he felt welcomed from the start into the local scene.
David works in advertising as a writer, so when he clocks out for the day, he likes to get out from behind the keyboard and stretch his legs. Maybe that’s another reason photography holds such an appeal for him. Thrumming with pent-up energy, David often finds himself combining two of his favorite activities — walking and photography.
“I always try to walk someplace new,” he says. “Memphis has a lot of history, and it loves its history,” he says; he often finds that he’s been strolling past a historic landmark for weeks without even knowing it. He says that here, the historic is often pressed right up against the cutting-edge. He likes that — the way history stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the vibrant now and the promise of tomorrow.
The book also pays special attention to the city’s wealth of unique signage, a glorious mishmash of artistic and advertising images, of the commonplace and the rare. From paintings by Lamar Sorrento and the bright neon of Beale Street to murals and famous storefronts — like Joe’s Liquors’ “Sputnik” sign or the quirky spelling on the Krosstown Kleaners building, David’s camera documents a Memphis that is unapologetically itself.
