David Hibbard is a third generation Californian, born in Los Angeles,
and a long time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. He attributes
his love of the natural world to his childhood experiences of exploring his
grandparents’ citrus ranch, bodysurfing in the Pacific Ocean, and camping
in the Sierra Nevada.
David’s interest in photography began when he received an Ashai Pentax
SLR camera as a high school graduation gift from his parents. Soon after,
he built his first darkroom and taught himself photographic technique by
reading Ansel Adams’ Basic Photo books. Another early influence was the
work of Elliot Porter, an early pioneer of color landscape photography.
More recently, David has been blessed to have several accomplished
contemporary photographers as mentors and teachers, including Stuart
Scofield, Marion Patterson, and Brigitte Carnochan.
David earned a B.A. degree in English literature and creative writing from
Stanford University. For over two decades, he used his writing skills to
help software companies improve their user documentation. He worked
for some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley—including
Hewlett-Packard and Intuit—and his work as a technical writer received
many industry awards. During those busy years, he photographed
whenever he could, but he never imagined that photography would ever
be anything more than a private hobby.
After recovering from a serious illness, David decided that photography
had to occupy a central place in his life. He switched to working in color—
which felt liberating after all those years of black-and-white—and began
photographing the natural world, which had always been his first
love. In 2002, he was able to retire from his Silicon Valley career to
pursue photographic projects full-time.
In the last few years, David has traveled extensively and photographed
in the Colorado Rockies, Kauai, Cornwall, London, Paris, and southern
France. His favorite locations, however, are the coastal forests and
rugged beaches near his Bay Area home. He has explored these
places with great care for several decades, creating an intimate portrait
of a natural realm just beyond the suburbs, semi-wild, still lovely.
Some of this work was published in 2008 as Natural Gestures,
David’s first book.