Published by Aperture in 2006, “My Life in Politics” is Tim Davis’s incisive treatise on the state of contemporary American civic life. Davis dissects the disenchantment of the political sphere by focusing on the “aestheticized banality” of political signage, badges, and bumper stickers. Rather than documenting real issues of power, his photographs investigate the social landscape where commercial and populist symbols jostle for attention. Continuing the colorist tradition of Stephen Shore, Davis uses light and refraction to transform quotidian objects into subtle meditations on democracy. The book includes an introductory essay by Jack Hitt and remains a seminal work in socially engaged documentary photography.
