James Duncan Davidson (born July 29, 1970 in Lubbock, Texas) is an American photographer and former software developer. While a software engineer at Sun Microsystems (1997–2001), Davidson created Tomcat, a Java‐based webserver application and the Ant Java‐based build tool.
He was raised in Oklahoma and Texas, and is currently self‐employed as both a software consultant and a photographer. He is a resident of Portland, Oregon.
James has in the recent past (2005–2006) turned his programming interests and attention in the direction of Ruby on Rails. In tandem with well‐known Rails guru Mike Clark, Davidson has designed and built some of the most complex and robust early Rails applications.
Starting in 2005, James' primary professional focus shifted to photography. He has served as the primary event photographer at several high-profile technology conferences. In February 2009, he served as a photographer at the TED conference.
He is co-founder and co-owner (with Greg Koenig) of Luma Labs, a small company in Portland, OR focused on making quality camera accessories.
Famous quotes containing the words james, duncan and/or davidson:
“Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens out the widest vistas. It ‘bakes no bread’, as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche.”
—Isadora Duncan (1878–1927)
“For like a mole I journey in the dark,
A-travelling along the underground”
—John Davidson (1857–1909)