Let's Explore Perseverance with David Allen

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Every year in Toulouse (where I live) there’s an environmental documentary film festival called “Festival FReDD.” For the 2017 festival, themed Oceans & Seas, I was approached by one of the organizers who was familiar with my work. (For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call her Candice.)
“Do you happen to have a beach-themed series? I’d love for you to exhibit for FReDD,” she emailed me. “Of course!” I responded almost immediately. By “of course,” I meant “of course I do not have a beach-themed series.” But, I was more than content to let her assume the completion of my fragment to be “… I have beach photos.” This meant, however, that I had a month to make an ocean-themed series – no small undertaking for an analogue photographer. Furthermore, I wanted to avoid “pretty” beach photos that, in the context of an environmental film festival, would essentially make the statement “Hey, look, you love the beach, I love the beach… isn’t it pretty? We should probably keep it pretty, I mean, whatever that entails. You don’t believe in climate change? I mean, you can look at my pretty photos anyway. Pretty.”
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Biography

After dropping out of college to focus on video production and graphic design, David Allen decided to become a strength coach. And, after deciding to no longer be a strength coach, he went back to college resulting in a Masters degree in mathematics.  Now – while working as a freelance n’importe quoi – he is working in art photography. After David left academia, art photography filled the void left by mathematics.

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