Artist's Message Introduction
Not yet diagnosed with bipolar disorder, as a young photographer, I taught myself how to shoot. The rose bushes out front of my parents' house were my models. It was all I wanted to do. By 13, I was dreaming of skipping college, moving to New York and redefining the medium. Precocious and over confident to a fault, I didn't yet understand that a photograph isn't a subject or place, it's light frozen in time. It's technique personified. Craft. Art.
My challenge, for decades, would become learning to enjoy the light in my own life. With treatment, I came to understand that the act of seeing and capturing light could literally push away my darkness. Viewing the world through a camera helps me find hope and peace. Every image, a reminder that the world's beauty can be mine to enjoy and to share with others, hopefully helping them find refuge from their own darkness.
50+ years after first trying out my dad’s camera, peering through a lens is still magic. In late 2018, I decided to turn professional. Which is a sexy way of saying sell my work. Not a simple process for an introvert. Six months later, I had edited and curated over 160,000+ images, eventually posting a few of my favorites here. Since then, I'm so proud that the Yellowstone Art Museum and Albuquerque Museum, arts centers and galleries in 14 states -- Colorado, California, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon, New York, Minnesota, Missouri, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Virginia, Kansas, Florida and Texas -- have exhibited my work. Oh and Scotland! The above picture was taken before my first show at Bitfactory Gallery in the Santa Fe Art District of Denver. The Burren College of Art in Ireland and the Unpack Havana Studio in Cuba accepted me into their Artist in Residence Programs just as Covid swooped down. I shot for a month in Ireland on lockdown but never made it to Havana.
I am profoundly grateful to the gallery owners, curators, judges and clients who have supported my evolution as a professional, despite my getting such a late start. It is especially fulfilling to receive pictures from my collectors, showing my work hanging in their homes and offices. I hope you enjoy those images. If you see something you’d like to learn more about, please try me at david@eichlerphotos or 406-696-9972 and we can set up a time to talk. Thanks!
Artist's Message 9/15/25
I'm excited to share with you that when I retired from my marketing and PR career two years ago I went back to graduate school for my masters in social work. That was more challenging than I ever could have imagined. All graduated, I just opened a private therapy practice in Billings which you can learn more about at www.nextstagemt.com. I am delighted, but not surprised, by how much my photography informs the work I now do with clients, battling trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, bipolar disorder and suicide. My office has become my little gallery, with shimmering metal prints of my favorite bisons, windmills, trees and sand dune images lining the walls.
In 2025, I spent a few weeks in Norway and Scotland, parts of which are stunning. I am shooting with a mirrorless Sony NEX-6 rig and gravitated back toward more wildlife and nature. Those images are coming soon.
Artist's Message 3/17/2024
In 2024 I headed off to Amsterdam and Berlin to shoot for a few weeks. The former is a city I love with every ounce of my soul. There are dozens of Dutch pictures laced throughout this site. By the way, a little geography Cliffs Notes for Americans. "Amsterdam" is a city. "Holland" is a county, not a country. The Netherlands is a country. Include "the." Berlin was a spiritual journey. I don't especially find the city pleasing but to the Germans' credit, they don't try to sweep under the rug what they did to my ancestors. The past is present, front, center and very raw. A constant reminder to how easily that can happen here. I am overdo to post a few pictures from this adventure here on the site.
Artist's Message - 7/21/23
When I was studying Art History in college I never fully understood when artists suddenly shifted gears from one medium, material or color to a completely new one. Picasso famously did so with blue. Well, just before moving to Montana I got the itch to start making more street images of people and less of landscapes and wildlife. Which makes absolutely no sense l know! I'll still shoot till my hands are blue if I see a Grizzly fishing in a stream. But I became interested in faces, eyes, hands, and the stories they tell.
I attended the Blackfoot Nation Pow Wow near Glacier National Park. The people couldn't have been more gracious. They allowed me to shoot in places I never would have asked to go, like right in the middle of the dance and drum circles. You don't need a history lesson to grasp just how hospitable they were so please look at those pictures in the Home, Montana, and People galleries of this site. I am very proud of them, but I promised the elders that I would not sell any. I would be happy to share a PDF with you, which is what I used to do.
I better understand that the path of introspection which came from turning professional led me to this shift from landscape and wildlife to people. Originally, I healed myself by finding physical beauty around me, wanting to share it and heal others. Now I see the beauty inside people and hope to help them find beauty in each other and their lives.
By the way, for you camera buffs, the Fuji X100V is all I'm shooting with now and it's like a dream. The waitlist to get one is 2 years. The Fuji has a genius level brain, a turbo-charged sensor and a crystal clear fixed lens, which forces a photographer to "zoom" with their feet and brain, not a dial.