Through Her Prism
As a creative producer in photography, Cassia Davis is Getty’s visual storyteller
Cassia Davis at the Getty Center's Spectrum 14 exhibition, artist Charles Ross's calibrated array of prisms that cast a dazzling display of luminous color across the Museum’s rotunda
Body Content
The gist of what I do:
My work involves visual brand photography—everything that tells the story of Getty to the public, like shooting marketing campaigns or website content. One day I might be photographing a conservator preserving an Artemisia Gentileschi painting. Another I could be taking pictures of Getty Museum visitors looking at paintings, or in Koreatown capturing a community sculpting event.
Early exposure: Growing up in South Carolina, at age 13, my parents gave me a video camera. I filmed everything. At 15, I took my first still photo on my dad’s point-and-shoot and enrolled in a photojournalism class I instantly loved. One thing that drove my love of photography was when I had a friend pass away. We had a literary magazine at my high school, and it was to include a memorial for her and another student who had also died that year. I submitted a photo I had taken of dried rose petals scattered across the bottom of a stone fountain. The editors paired it with a memorial poem, and seeing the two together was so moving to me. It showed me that an image could contain a deeper meaning. After that, the point-and-shoot was always with me.
College years: Like many kids growing up in the ’90s with an immigrant parent—my mom is Filipina—I understood that I was supposed to become a lawyer or a doctor like my dad, who worked in the ER. In my mind, the whole art field did not exist as a career path. And I needed a career path.
Because I’d also enjoyed writing as a child, I enrolled at NYU in journalism, and in my sophomore year I had to choose between print or broadcast. At that point, print was dying in the eyes of major news. Since I was on loans at an expensive school, I asked a respected professor for advice. She said, “broadcast all the way,” so I chose that, and it worked well for me because I had all the camera experience from my teenage years.
At NYU, I even studied photography ethics, including French philosopher Roland Barthes’s theory that photographing something essentially kills it because the photograph becomes the memory. Sometimes I won’t take a photo because the moment is too precious to me. I would also never use someone to get the photo I want—I would feel parasitic.
Cassia Davis in her studio surrounded by images from her passion project, As Needed, a series that explores the effect of mood-altering substances on mental health
Photo: Christopher Stoltz
Post-college path: My first job out of college was as a grassroots community manager for Girl Rising, a documentary film and social action campaign showing the transformative power of girls’ education in regions where it’s forbidden.
Then I had one of those light switch moments while living in New York: I was working 12-hour days, it was a cold and wet mid-February, and I got slapped in the face by a slimy piece of trash. Within 24 hours I had applied for a work visa in Australia, and within the year I had moved there with my now husband. I waitressed, bought a Nikon D3300 camera, and we traveled around in a camper van while I took photos. At one point I traveled to the Philippines and got to see where my mother grew up and meet extended family members. Sharing meals with them in the outdoor kitchen my mother ate in as a child and photographing the experience meant everything to me.
In 2015 I moved to Atlanta when a friend told me about a job with ShootProof, where I became a creative producer. Flying all over the country producing video and photo shoots and doing freelance photography on the side gave me the confidence to pursue photography more seriously. In 2017, when I moved to Los Angeles, I got my MFA at Otis College of Art and Design.
Full circle moment: When I saw Getty’s job posting almost three years ago, I honestly couldn’t believe a position existed to do photography full-time. The job blended the three things I love: photography, social activism (Getty’s many community and arts programs across LA), and art. In South Carolina, we had little access to art, but when I was 13, I visited my sister, who was living in New York, and she taught me how to walk through a museum. She whispered as we approached each painting: why it mattered and what was happening in it. That changed everything.
Favorite recent assignment: Getty recently acquired Quentin Metsys’s Madonna of the Cherries, and I photographed the installation. I watched the prep people hold up the painting for the curators to say, “Maybe a quarter inch this way or that way, and oh, it’s a bit crooked.” While a lot goes into getting that painting there, the actual hanging reminded me of how I do it at home, which was a funny and oddly comforting experience.
My tricks of the trade: At work, I shoot with Sony A 7R IVs. They’re Sony’s mirrorless professional cameras built for photography, and I love them endlessly. I have my favorite lenses—they’re like my children. My 35mm Sigma Art lens is the greatest gift the world has ever given me. These tools make my job better and easier.
Isaac Yi, whom Davis photographed on the fly for a Getty magazine story about how Getty Center visitors express their creativity
Off duty, I mainly use a Sony A 7 II with vintage Minolta lenses and an adapter. They’re excellent lenses with beautiful glass, and I have some from the ’60s and ’80s. For street photography, I use a Ricoh GR II camera, which is tiny and built solely for street photography, which I do on the weekends.
Tips for amateur but avid photographers: The first thing to learn is how light works. This advice keeps giving because light is constantly changing and different everywhere. The best natural light to work in when you’re just beginning is on a cloudy day—you can shoot any hour. For portraits, families, engagements, or anything similarly client based, I recommend golden hour—the time right before twilight or right after sunrise. The light is glowy, the shadows aren’t too long, and skin tones look beautiful.
Noon can be the worst time to shoot because the shadows become harsh when the sun reaches its highest point. I would avoid photographing people in this light, but this hour could add impact for some architectural photography where high contrast can work well.
Most challenging part of my job: Choosing what stories to focus on. There are endless visual stories to tell across Getty, but I can only photograph one at a time. I constantly need to hold myself accountable and make sure the ones I’m prioritizing are the most impactful, though as with most content creation jobs, you can’t know for certain what a general audience will connect with.
Favorite part of my job: Meeting so many interesting people, each of whom has an incredible depth of knowledge about things I’m also passionate about: art, community activism, and the history of LA. One day I’ll be photographing a scholar researching an experimental German art collective active in East Berlin during the Cold War, and the next day I’ll be taking behind-the-scenes images of an artist painting a mural of Paul Revere Williams on Crenshaw Boulevard. In the short time I’ve been at Getty, I’ve worked with artists I’d never dreamed of meeting in person and learned things about art conservation I never would have guessed. And I love that I get to form a relationship with each person I meet and ask them questions about their work. Even after almost three years, that part still feels unreal.
