by Orlando Rodriguez

Photographer David Whitman is adept at capturing gentle flares of human vitality. With a painter’s eye, he records the world around him in compositions that are at once dreamlike and organic.

Possessed of an insatiatable wanderlust, a love of nature and a keen eye for light and shadows, the Miami resident says he eschews generic “postcard photography” in favor of meditations on private moments that convey a sense of warmth and spontaneity—in “Rui waiting for the rain to stop,” for example, a shirtless boy lingers in a doorway with his back turned to the dimness of the interior as he peers longingly at a tapestry of green plants obscured in the distance.

“For me the most important record of a journey is the people I meet,” Whitman explains.

Whitman’s artful photographs probe the secret world of sideway glances and introspection by depicting people in outdoor settings—in “Barquinho,” for instance, a barefooted lad in yellow swim trunks sits in a weathered rowboat gazing downward at the rippling aquamarine water.

“He is the master of portraiture, most especially in the area of capturing a subject in available light,” says Coconut Grove artist Lisa Remeny of her close friend Whitman. “His empathetic spirit for all humankind is often translated through his lens. He possesses a warm, generous soul with an innate ability to put his subjects at ease, and this is apparent in his results.”

Rather than staging photos, Whitman prefers to aim his eye toward life’s visual poetry while educing the inner luminescence of his youthful subjects. “I like to record what exists in the world: Natural light, natural people,” says Whitman, who in recent travels has captured different elements of Brazilian culture: colorful landscapes, the fishing villages and the bright tropical colors that help define the South American juggernaut’s national character.

Whitman’s images depict regular people in ordinary situations. Many depict youth at play. “With children,” says Whitman, “there is a sense of light emanating from within.”

“Luminous Youth” showcases Whitman’s ability to discover beauty in everyday life with an exhibit of 17 images, each printed on watercolor paper. “I am very excited to show David’s photographs,” Biscayne Nature Center director Theo Long says enthusiastically. “I found David’s photos to capture the essence of children outdoors enjoying our natural environment.”

Early on, Whitman’s fondness for travel took shape in the form of academics. While in high school, he traveled to Belgium as an exchange student. Later, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in St Lucia, where he plied his talents in forestry and bio-diversity. More recently, he spent four months teaching English to college students in Brazil. “Being outside of the country for an extended time allowed me to see things in a different perspective in a way that has really informed the rest of my life,” says Whitman, who speaks six languages, including Portuguese and Dutch.

In college, Whitman’s love affair with the visual arts evolved alongside an appreciation for wilderness. A one-year stint at the University of California Santa Cruz, a campus surrounded by redwood forest, inspired Whitman to transfer to UC Berkeley to major in forestry.

Throughout Whitman’s college experience, tree classes coexisted with music appreciation. Attending a Wednesday afternoon concert series on campus became routine. “I’d sprint in my hiking boots across campus to make it to these free classical music concerts,” he recalls. From music concert afficionado Whitman moved to behind-the-scenes player when he became the manager of the famed Hertz Concert Hall.

Much of Whitman’s spare time revolved around developing as an artist. He studied watercolor painting with Karen Frey and music with the late concert pianist Barbara Shearer, two artistic mentors who influenced his artistry. Painting with watercolors showed Whitman how to see “color and composition, light and shadow” in a way that prepped his eye for photography. “My eye developed in a way that helped me in photography,” he says. “My visual artistry developed from painting into photography.”

Whitman first ventured to Brazil in 1991, buying a camera for the trip. Besides run-of-the-mill sightseeing, he toured the shanty towns of Rio, also known as favelas, in the company of an anthropologist who was researching women with HIV. Sadly, Whitman’s visual diary of the trip was decimated, along with his home and possessions, in the Oakland hills wildfires of October 1991, this less than two months before a second trip to Brazil.

During a visit to a Red Cross aid station, a rescue worker noticed the Portuguese study book tucked under Whitman’s arm. Dolefully, Whitman spoke of his decision to cancel his upcoming trip. The aid worker dissuaded Whitman from wallowing in the aftermath of a life-altering blaze.

Inspired, Whitman returned to Brazil, where he let his shutter go wild. One of the images from this sojourn was selected from 20,000 submissions in National Geographic Traveler’s amateur photography contest. Titled “Barquinho,” the image depicts a small boy in a rowboat, lost in the “tranquility of moment,” Whitman says. The recognition not only helped erase some painful memories but also reinforced Whitman’s blossoming romance with photography. “In a way, it validated my passion,” he says.

Whitman experienced a “sense of renewal, of not being encumbered by any possessions” when he returned home from Brazil. “I kept a positive spirit and what it did is it reinforced my nonmaterial nature,” he says. Whitman’s minimalist approach to life became further ingrained when he nearly died in a riptide during a 1996 visit to St. Lucia.

In the wake of this near-death experience, Whitman began to reexamine the meaning of his quest on earth. “At that moment I decided to try to achieve things in life without waiting because it was a day I almost died,” he says.

The lyrical quality of Brazilian Portugese beckoned like a siren’s call, and Whitman soon found himself teaching English at a private school in Rio. During his six-month trip, Whitman began to recognize the importance of the color yellow to the Brazilian identity.

“Yellow is ubiquitous in Brazil. It is a dominant force in the culture, in the psyche, in the physical environment and in the people of the country,” he says, speaking enthusiastically about “the color of joy.”

Succumbing to his affinity for subtropical climes, Whitman moved to Miami nine years ago. Career-wise, he was hired as the director of the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council. Four years ago, Whitman was hired by Fairchild Tropical Garden to oversee the Fairchild Challenge, an outreach program for teens that emphasizes creative environmental learning. “It combines science and the arts in a way that never should have been separated because the two are interconnected,” he says. “We are able to reach out creatively to 45,000 teenagers and get them excited about environmental learning.”

A resident of Surfside, the oceanfront enclave directly north of Miami Beach, Whitman loves shooting at sunrise or sunset on the beach. He embraces a “simple lifestyle,” one marked by an aversion to pop-culture transmissions. He doesn’t own a television, but reads “voraciously.”

He also spends a lot of time thinking about Brazil, a country that has always seemed familiar to him. “It’s an amazing country, with truly diverse cultures,” Whitman says.

The Islander News, September 6, 2007