Lilly Davis
Graduate student Lilly Davis, from Ashland City, Tennessee, can be found around the campus of Tennessee Tech University, often photographing events ranging from sports to student engagement and anything in between.
In the Fall semester of 2020, she came to Tech seeking a degree in human ecology.
“I wanted to do child development stuff, and out of the three universities I could find, Tech just felt the most at home for me,” she said.
Davis had a passion for photography, even though she didn’t think she wanted to make a career out of it. She said that around her sophomore year, she really started leaning into that passion.
Davis earned an undergraduate degree in human development and family science; however,
she did a lot of work within the communication department during that time. Working
with The Eagle, Tech’s yearbook, and The Oracle, Tech’s newspaper, she continued to
deepen her passion.
“About sophomore year, when I got involved with yearbook, I started to fall more in
love with my passion for photography,” she said. “And then eventually, Bee Goodman
(managing editor at the time) pulled me into The Oracle, and I started doing photos
with them.”
Davis stated that around her senior year, she started to realize just how deep her
passion had grown. She decided to pursue a master’s degree in media and strategic
communication at Tech. She has taken photos for the communication department, athletics,
the newspaper, the yearbook and even student engagement.
“Photography makes me really happy because, getting to take those moments that not
everyone notices and make those into candid shots, it just makes me really happy,”
she said.
Everyone has bad days, and Davis is no exception. But she said the joy that comes
from photography drives her to push through even when she doesn’t feel like it.
“It hits me and I’m like, ‘Girl, this is what you want to do.’ And you get to make
people happy. Me seeing other people happy over my photography makes me happy, and
that’s what keeps me motivated,” she said.
Another aspect of photography she enjoys is being able to capture people's personalities.
She said a lot of people will say, “get my good side,” but when they see a photo of
them in action, their insecurities start to fall.
“They start to love themselves more.”
“I specialize in sports and events photography,” she said.
She likes sports and events because the photos have more of a story, although she
likes to take senior photos as well.
Davis has earned many awards for her photography. Most recently, she was a top-five
finalist in the nation at the Collegiate Media Conference, for a photo of a vigil
for a student who took his life earlier in the year.
She stated, “I took this shot to promote awareness and mental health. This image was
of a student holding a candle, and the focus was on this one candle, whereas the rest
of the background was curved with all the rest of the students holding up candles,
it was all blurred.”
The idea was to show people that they are not alone. Though you are one person going
through life, there are many standing with you, she explained.
She said she’d love to stay at Tech and do university photography, but no matter where life takes her, Davis will look to use her degrees to help and make people happy.