Echoes of Scenic

• Prize
  Bronze in Fine Art/Landscape
• Photographer
  David Welch, United States
• Studio
  David Welch Photographic Arts
• Website
  https://davidwelchphotographicarts.org/
• Instagram
  @davidwelchartphoto

Echoes of Scenic explores a near-forgotten town on the edge of South Dakota’s Badlands. Once a small but lively community, Scenic is now defined by weathered buildings, rusted relics, and wide-open silence. Through repeated visits, I sought to capture its haunting stillness and the traces of lives once rooted there. These images reflect on memory, abandonment, and the quiet persistence of place—where history lingers in peeling paint, empty rooms, and vast horizons, inviting viewers to contemplate what remains when time moves on.

David Welch is a fine art photographer based in Sonoma County, California. After a career in Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry, he shifted to photography full-time, building on formal training received in college and continuing education through professional workshops and a mentorship with Bob Killen (National Park Photography Expeditions) and W. Scott Olsen (Concordia College).
His work explores the intersection of history, memory, and place, with recent projects focusing on sites such as Mare Island Naval Shipyard (Ghosts in the Glass) and Scenic, South Dakota (Echoes of Scenic).

Awards Group Exhibitions:

2025 Decagon Gallery, Places and Spaces
2025 Black Box Gallery, Focus: Trees and Water
2025 Black Box Gallery, Vision: Shadow and Light

2024 Art Scene West, Photographic Fine Art
2024 Black Box Gallery, Street+Night+Architecture

Publications:
June 2025 L'Oeil de la Photographie