David Palermo is a photographer known for capturing distinguished residences and commissioned portraiture throughout Montecito, Santa Barbara, and the surrounding coast.

For nearly two decades, his work has been trusted by architects, interior designers, builders, and discerning homeowners to create imagery that reflects form, craftsmanship, and the way a space feels.

His approach is guided by observation, restraint, and attentiveness to light. Whether photographing a home or a person, he is drawn to the moment when structure, atmosphere, and presence align naturally.

“I’m drawn to the moment things stop feeling posed.”

Palermo began photographing people in his late teens and early twenties, creating test images for fashion agencies. What stayed with him was not the industry itself, but the experience of watching someone recognize themselves in a photograph, an early lesson in the responsibility a portrait carries.

That same sensitivity informs his architectural and interior work. Rather than documenting spaces literally, he photographs rooms as they are experienced, looking for the quiet balance between proportion, material, and light.

Earlier in his career, Palermo spent many years working in a design-driven environment where clarity, restraint, and intention were central, an experience that continues to inform how he approaches both portraiture and architecture today.

His understanding of light has been shaped by photographers and painters whose restraint and clarity continue to inform his work, from Irving Penn, Paolo Roversi, and Julius Shulman to Rembrandt and John Singer Sargent.

Whether creating architectural imagery or portraiture, his intention remains the same: to produce images that feel honest, crafted, and quietly enduring, meant to be lived with.