Recent News

October 3, 2011

Yacht Essentials March / April 2011 edition saw my image of the Holland made U-Boat – a three person personal submarine.  I originally photographed these images for U-Boat and then returned for a photo shoot for a spread in Paris Match.  Several other of my images are published inside the magazine.

September 15, 2011

Last week, I received a call from Bryce, the owner of Blue Moon Fish Company – one of Lauderdale By The Sea’s greatest eating establishment.  We made an appointment to discuss his vision of how he wanted to see the food in his world-class restaurant portrayed.  Once he related to me the warmth and the textures he wanted to convey through my images, I instantly knew exactly how I wanted to light and shoot these photos.  I couldn’t wait to get started!  As I tend to do the day of a photo shoot, I arrived a little early to scout things out and was floored by the number of people eating there – well after the lunch hour. After most of the patrons left, lights and cameras were set up and I went to work. Bryce styled all his own dishes himself and did an amazing job, I might add. The  entire staff at this restaurant go out of their way to give their patrons an enjoyable dining experience.  Bryce and restaurant manager George Karathanas are two of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet and the food there is just incredible.  I’ll bet that if you have lunch or dinner at Blue Moon and mention that you saw and loved my images, those guys will buy you a drink.  And if they don’t, I will!

June 28, 2011

Coming in at #72, between Pulitzer Prize winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin #71, and Salman Rushdie #73, David was honored in Boca Raton Magazine’s, ULTIMATE “IT” LIST in their July/August 2011 edition.

[72] Boca Shark Invasion:  The city made national news in February when thousands of sharks were spotted swimming some 50 yards from our coast.  No one locally has come face to face with more sharks than David Pearlman, the town’s most prolific underwater photographer.  “When you look into their eyes, you see life – you see something mystic,” he says. Pearlman photographed this great white in South Australia.

March 6, 2011

No sooner did I arrive at my favorite spot at Wakodahatchee Wetland Wildlife Park in Delray Beach, Florida when the cool morning air smacked me right in the nostrils with the pungent and unmistakable scent of bird urine.  Unpleasant as that was, it was nothing compared to what I was about to encounter.  As I set up my camera and 500mm lens on a tripod, I noticed that the sun was coming up rather differently than it had done nearly every day in the past two months.

The wetlands were dangerously close to becoming drylands.   In fact, the wetland basin was little more than mud – and some of the mud was dry with cracks only the lack of moisture from the most lengthy droughts can produce.  But the biggest alligator in the area was still around.  I could hear him growling that very primitive rumble in the near distance.

Sunlight was struggling to find its way to Earth, and warm the beautiful scenery that was beginning to include some bruised and sullen rain clouds looming ominously to the east.  No worries, I thought…  It can’t rain.  Mother Nature would never be so cruel as to send rain on the first day that I decided to take my equipment out for a morning photo safari in months, or would she? She’s far too kind and compassionate to want me to be caught a quarter mile away from any structure capable of sheltering me and my equipment.  Turned out, Mother Nature was more determined to take pity on the wetland creatures than she was concerned about my stuff.  And rain it did.  It fell from the sky in buckets – but thankfully only for about ten minutes. Once the rain stopped, I stood for a moment dripping wet.  I was dumbfounded that, despite 25 years experience, I had still allowed myself to be as unprepared as I was.  No umbrella, waterproof poncho or plastic bags to fit over my camera cases.  The chill of the rain-soaked air permeated my clothing.  Cold and wet, but determined to view and process the damage quickly, I unzipped the rather large and heavy camera bags that served as my gear’s sole protection from the elements.  I expected to see what would amount to 50 or 60 grand in damage to my equipment, and I started to think about how my insurance company was going to bone me.  I could already hear the despicable arguments of the claims adjuster, “Mr. Pearlman, it says right here on your insurance policy that we do not cover any water damage sustained to your cameras on Saturday mornings during the dry season.”
Imagine my delight and surprise when I opened the bags to find everything bone dry.  Bravo Think Tank and Tamrac Bags!  You did exactly what you claimed to do and I won’t have to deal with the only people on the planet more loathsome and dishonorable than lawyers – insurance agents. Now sunshine was beginning to stream down between the breaking cloud formations.  Suddenly, the wildlife park came alive, soaring with activity.  The bull alligator appeared thrilled with the short attempt  to end the dry season early and began flipping around in circles under his fresh new coat of H2O.  I had to take the cameras out in a hurry if I was going to catch any of that action.  I’m not sure how, or why, but animals seem to know precisely when you’re ill-prepared to photograph them and choose those times to do the most unusual and outrageous things.  What this reptile didn’t know was that I am the quickest draw in these here parts and can build a camera system and catch the end of his show before he could spell death roll – if indeed alligators could spell. A female great blue heron began shaking the rain off her feathers and flew to distant trees to collect twigs to continue building her nest, where her partner protected their baby chicks.  One female anhinga who I named “Linda” for obvious reasons, fed her chicks straight out of her throat.  At times it looked as if her chicks’ heads were so deep in her throat that they appeared to be pulling food directly from her stomach! Of the two plus hours I spent in the quiet sweet light taking pictures of these amazing critters, it never occurred to me to check my iphone, so cleverly tucked away in my photo vest pocket.  At the end of the shoot, I pulled it out to see if anyone had tried to contact me.  That was when I noticed the disturbing sight of moisture under the now-dim screen of my little, and mind you expensive phone / calendar / address book / keeper of every important piece of information I have.  Perhaps I should have invested in a bag for my iphone as well!

October 14, 2010

I’ve often wondered what craps table our souls stand around in the process that decides where we will come into this Earth. Who will our parents be? Will we be born into the cozy bosom of extraordinary opulence or confined to the deepest despair of extreme poverty? Who will be blessed with great health and who will succumb to the afflictions of the most horrific diseases? Will our parents and siblings be taken from us early or will we be blessed to hand our great grandparents our babies on their first birthdays? Will our families be torn apart by the nightmare that is war or will we grow in times of peace? Normally, Steve McCurry’s genius photograph of that beautiful yet terrorized Afghan girl he photographed for National Geographic comes to mind… What if that girl had been born to Saudi royalty? What if she had been the daughter of a Wall Street business tycoon? What if only a middle class Dutch girl in a humble but beautifully warm and loving home in Holland? Is it solely a crap shoot, or are we here to learn lessons only the saddest and most frightening of life’s occurrences can teach? Model Kelly Harman, along with her alluring eyes, and masterful makeup artist Jill Oscar-Salles helped me explore an attempt at a recreate of an image I have always admired, but with a woman who had never felt the pain and torture of a life all but destroyed by war.