After 35 years as the principal in a successful investment firm, Donald R. Harivel began a second career chasing light. Since changing professions in 2015, he has built an impressive body of work with a catalog of images numbering more than 60,000.
Though photography is a relatively new career for Harivel, his passion for the medium is not. Before stepping behind the camera himself, he amassed, over a period of 25 years, a significant collection of classic black and white images by luminaries in the field. The collection, which includes photographs by Horst P. Horst, Edward Weston, Ruth Bernhard, Edward Steichen and Imogen Cunningham, as well as modern and contemporary masters such as Michael Kenna, Richard Finkelstein, Julie Blackmon and Herb Ritts, has inspired Harivel’s work.
Citing Peter Lik and Andreas Gursky as his current influences, Harivel works primarily in medium-format photography and focuses on the genres of large-format fine art landscapes and cityscapes. Though the wide variety of his images reflects great versatility, his intense attention to detail and vantage points nevertheless make the images identifiable as Harivel’s, often raising ordinary, otherwise mundane views to the level of fine art by capturing them at just the right moment.
Harivel is convinced that great photographers know where to stand and when to stand there, that the world is insanely beautiful, and that there is a story behind every photograph.
His exquisite prints can be found in a growing number of private and corporate collections today.
