David Walter Banks

David Walter Banks is a photographer and artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work ranges from stylized conceptual portraiture to environmental-issue based documentary photography.

Banks believes our world is saturated with imagery delivered in a way that makes it easy to scroll past, and that viewers are more visually sophisticated than ever because of this bombardment of stimuli. Banks injects fantastical visual elements into his documentary photographs, using in-camera techniques rather than post-production effects. The slices of magic realism beg the viewer to question what they see and stop long enough to learn more.

Banks was the recipient of the CENTER Project Launch Grant, and has been interviewed by PDN, Rangefinder, TIME’s Lightbox, aPhotoEditor, and CNN about his work. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection at the New York Public Library.

Banks has lectured at Western Kentucky University, Ohio University, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, University of Miami, SCAD, UNC Chapel Hill, and UMass. His clients have included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, ProPublica, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, Smithsonian, Mother Jones and The Washington Post among others.