Faces, some painted and some not, are perhaps the most powerful element in a show of mostly color photographs by Austin artist Greg Davis at Visions In the Paseo Art Gallery. Startling yellow paint makes the face in the foreground of one of a group of “Huli Warriors” in Papua New Guinea stand out dramatically, contrasting with his red beard and other ornaments.

Equally striking is the dark headgear — woven from cloth and his own hair — that seems to engulf “The Wigman,” who also wears multiple strands of beads, in another New Guinea picture.

Black-and-white, rather than color, serves Davis well in his close-up of the profile of the “Muse of Chimbu,” her face covered with white, cracking, grotesquely alluring paint. Not needing face paint, only beads and a shy smile, is an Ethiopian “Hamer Beauty,” while the raffish angle of her giant cigar captures the “Santeria Sass” of a Cuban woman.

Lower key, but no less effective, are his color photos of a group of robed Ethiopians, silhouetted in front of “Marmalade Skies,” and of a man wearing an orange scarf in front of seemingly endless “Sahara Dunes.”

Memorable, too, are the green and blue-tinted hands of “The Blanket Weaver” in Vietnam, in a photographic close-up so detailed that it makes her fingerprints clearly visible. Other fine photos are of three red-robed Burmese monks whose downcast eyes suggest that they are “On the Path” of meditation, and of a monk training a young apprentice.

The bridge becomes more important than our distant view of two red-robed Burmese figures walking on it in a photographic composition which communicates an air of quiet contemplation. People are absent, but vivid color and design are more than enough to engage our interest in his cropped, close-up picture of Vietnamese boats.

Offering a nice contrast are the more muted pastel hues which surround the “Gods in the Alleyway” — two white sacred Brahman cattle, rather than people. Wonderfully restful, yet evocative, is the “Flow of Time,” a picture of pebbles that seem nearly jewel-like and magical at the bottom of a spring in Turkey.

Davis is a National Geographic collections photographer who left a successful career in the technology business in 2004 to travel the world for a year. His exhibit is recommended viewing during its run through Oct. 5 at the gallery.

— John Brandenburg

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