Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Dennis Church of Delray Beach

We recently had the chance to connect with Dennis Church and have shared our conversation below.

Dennis, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I am very much enjoying getting back to playing golf after a few years of little golf. I am enjoying it at a new level because I am seeing it as so similar to photography. First, you get one shot often. Second, in my style of street and documentary photography there are no do-overs. And also its a game of inches or even millimeters. A small movement can mean success or failure.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am a documentary and street photography, which means I photograph whatever is in front of me that trips my shutter finger. It’s a rare thing and often misunderstood as simply snap-shooting. My style is designed to hide my hand so to speak, meaning that I may make a picture that at first glance looks like a snapshot, but upon further study the picture has an internal organization that is subtle and unassuming in such a away that it brings the full impact of the scene out without calling attention to itself as a designed picture, like a window, not a mirror. This style has evolved over fifty years of photographing quickly and spontaneously in the street and other public places.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
Many years ago, on my lunch break from a government job that was so dull it
felt like time itself had flatlined, I stood outside on my lunch break, camera in hand, wondering
what to photograph. Frustration swirled in my head until a voice, my own
voice, offered the stunningly obvious, yet most profound advice: Photograph
what’s in front of you!

That moment changed everything. I started really seeing the world.
Photography became my way to seeing, not just with my eyes, but with my
whole being. I realized that the mundane world, the massive range of colors
and scenes in parking lots, behind commercial buildings, and even garbage
dumpsters and any mundane scene, hold infinite unexpected beauty. And humor, too!

Some simple examples: The way a stop sign leans just so, like it’s sighing
after a long day, or the way a shopping cart sits stranded in the middle of an
empty lot, waiting for some great adventure. I made a commitment then to
photograph real ordinary scenes, as they are and make them as interesting as
possible.

What fear has held you back the most in your life?
My most powerful fear has been simply that of being seen. That seems ironic for a visual artist/photographer but it’s true. I have made hundreds of thousands of photographs over fifty years but have been afraid to show them for a large part of that time. Why? Because of fear of judgement from others, fear of being shamed. I grew up in an atmosphere of emotional invalidation that I internalized and only in recent years have I gotten comfortable showing my photographs. I have always shown them but getting comfortable doing it is recent. Maybe it’s just aging that has changed me, I’m not sure. And I have had a lot of help from friends and therapists in overcoming this fear. I am extremely grateful I have been able to overcome the pain of it.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
This seems like a smart aleck answer; but my project is me! By that I mean that my artwork is about me discovering me. It is a constant perennial lifelong project. I view it as indispensable to my life. I feel I was born to make photographs. Sounds dramatic and in my life that feeling has been dramatic. I have had to overcome the sense that that kind of attitude is self centered and undesirable and selfish. I feel that I need to work on me and change the space between my ears. If I want to change the world, I change me and the world is a different place.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
I feel that my photographs are about time, the passage of time, and that process inevitably brings one’s own mortality issue to the forefront. I have come to accept my own mortality as inevitable. Anything else is denial. And in that acceptance, beyond any morose attitude, comes the intense joy of seeing the beauty of color and humor in unexpected and mundane moments as something super gratifying. Dwelling on one’s own mortality is not the goal, but because making photographs constantly reminds me of it, I see it as not morose but just another moment in the infinite.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
DIRT FRESH Sign, Bonita Springs, Florida 2012. © Dennis Church

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