According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), 77% of American households now own at least one digital camera. Add to that the digital cameras found on most phones and there’s a good chance that just about anyone around you could snap a photo of you at anytime. These days everyone can be a street photographer.  On more than one occasion, I’ve had strangers point their camera in my direction and snap away without asking.  This has made me very sensitive to how I take photos of others in public. Most often I’ll ask a stranger if I can take their portrait before snapping. However, sometimes the image would be ruined by interacting with the subjects. Such is the case of the untitled above image of two kids sharing a private moment at a public event. I still haven’t figured out where the line is. Depending on the situation, I’ll often share a photo taken unnoticed and ask permission to add it to my portfolio.  Sometimes, though, I’d rather not disturb folks.

Each fall, hundreds of artists across San Francisco share their work during ArtSpan’s monthlong Open Studios
program. I hadn’t intended on shooting portraits during the event, but was inspired by the challenge of capturing each artist in their space using only existing light and my trusty little Canon SD1200 camera. The series of portraits was much inspired by the work of Arnold Newman and Wieden + Kennedy 12′s motto: Fail Harder. Most portraits I shoot usually take at least half and hour and are under at least partially controlled lighting conditions. Limiting each to no more than three minutes and existing light resulted in some very beautiful and some very blurry shots.

View the entire series The here

This image of an intimate moment between roommates was taken at my friend Chris’ birthday weekend at an vineyard estate up in Sonoma. Of the 300+ images snapped that weekend, it’s one of my favorites. It’s also one of only seven that I’ll share with the public on Flickr. In the past, being the friend of a photographer meant that your picture might be snapped often, but rarely appear in public (with a few notable exceptions). Of course, with the advent of digital photography and Flickr and Facebook, it’s almost impossible to have images of yourself not appear on the Web. With this in mind, I try to strike a balance between sharing my work and sharing the lives of me and my friends on-line.

Portrait of Ada Pinkston by David Gartner

“I’m a photographer, here’s my card, I’d like to take your portrait.” It’s a bit of a cliché for a photographer to hand someone their card and make the above statement. More so, it’s a cliche for a male photographer to do so with a woman. However, a few months back I handed my card to the artist Ada Pinkston at her “slash” job at a local restaurant (as in artist/waitress).

It took Ada about four months to get back to me. I’m glad she waited as I’m currently working on more environmental portraits in a similar vein as Arnold Newman’s work. Ada paints and creates collages in a very dark attic in her apartment in sunny Bernal Heights. Trying to make due with existing light and adding artificial light to the cramped attic was a fun challenge, but the best images came when we moved a few of her pieces to the bright kitchen.

You can view the entire set here.