Above: DuVall liked this feel of Easy Street at night. (Duane DuVall photo) Below: DuVall works on framing one of his recent photographs. (Jon C. Lakey photo)
D
uane DuVall calls his cramped workspace “The Photographer’s Dungeon.” The self-described 49-year-old manchild lives in a small house on DeSoto Avenue in Kannapolis and his “dungeon” is a basement, accessed from an outside door. It’s a low-ceilinged, low-lit area with all of his photographic, print-making, matting and framing equipment mixed in with the normal things shoved into a basement. DuVall says there’s “tons of chaos” here, but he’s not complaining. “I couldn’t beat it when I found this house,” he says, noting the $600-a-month rent. With his favorite camera, a Nikon Z6, DuVall has taken photographs of Salisbury and Kannapolis that over recent years have found their way onto the walls of many local residences and businesses. His fascination with Salisbury started when he was a dishwasher for more than two years at Sweet Meadow Cafe, and he came to appreciate the city’s history, architecture and infrastructure. “The views of Salisbury are just unreal,” he says. DuVall became fascinated, for example, with the Salis-
bury Depot, the Square at night, the details in old Salisbury doors and drone aerial shots of the downtown. “I love Fisher Street — the brick street — and the strings of lights that run down there,” DuVall adds as he prints a snowy, nighttime scene of East Fisher on silver paper. In Kannapolis, his camera focuses on buildings at the N.C. Research Campus. It takes in the new downtown baseball park, Village Park and old Cannon Village streets. Outside of Salisbury and Kannapolis, his catalog of images includes visits to the N.C. mountains, and overall he cap-
Opposite, clockwise from top: Photographer Duane DuVall works on framing a recent photograph in his Kannapolis basement workspace (Jon C. Lakey photo); Wiseman’s View Overlook in Newland, N.C. (Duane DuVall photo); DuVall has a stack of his photographs matted and ready for sale. (Jon C. Lakey photo)
