Photography | Dan Gardiner

Awards and Features

Awards
2025: Selected as Choose Chicago Artist of the Year (Fox32 Feature)
2024: Two photos selected for CPC WithInSight Gallery "In Motion" juried show, including Juror's Prize
2025: Two photos selected for CPC WithInSight Gallery "Monochrome" juried show
2025: Five photos selected for CPC WithInSight Gallery "Magnified" juried show

Features
2017: Photos of yacht Il Mostro published in Yachting in Chicago magazine
2022: Photo of Cardinal selected for National Wildlife Federation Holiday Card program
2023: Photos from Chicago-Mac Race published in Sailing World magazine
2025: Featured in "What We Hold" exhibition at CPC WithInSight Gallery

Daily Inspiration

It’s here! My 2026 calendar is now available and in hand to be able to be sent out immediately! Snag yours from https://www.dangardiner.info/calendar

The last full set from Alaska - capturing some of the stunning landscapes around the state!

Another surreal experience from Alaska - whales “bubble net” fishing! A group of whales gets together and circles below a school of fish, releasing air on cue that rise in a cylinder. The bubbles form a “net” around the fish making them think that they’re trapped, and then the whales all rush to the surface inside that column, grabbing giant mouthfuls of fish as they surface. Out of the water on the surface, seagulls watch for this behavior and dive down to also take advantage of the fish jumping out of the water to escape the whales - to have their own feast. Absolutely incredible to see in real life!

For the last set of bear pics, my favorite set - Bears Eating! It was incredible seeing how efficiently they could strip off the skin to eat, munch on a few other bits like head and eggs, and discarding the rest - focusing only on the highest caloric density parts.

Next up for @fatbearweek - Fishing for salmon!

Ok fine, I’ve strung you along for long enough with Alaska pics - in honor of @fatbearweek, here’s the first of three sets of Bears from last month! These are all from @katmainpp, where bears and people coexist in the same space and along the same trails in an absolutely surreal environment. This set is just bears being bears - chilling, playing, keeping an eye on cubs, and swimming.

Another from Alaska - Moose and Denali! We were incredibly fortunate to have a gorgeous moose dining on underwater plants for almost a whole day - after a hike (where we took some shots from VERY far away in case he was gone by the time we got to the lake), we trucked down and found him still munching away, dipping his whole head underwater for a minute or two to get a good mouthful, then popping up, water cascading off his antlers. To really make things absurdly awesome, Denali cleared of clouds for long enough that we were able to get the bucket list combo shot. Thank goodness we had mosquito headnets, as this spot had some of the most incredible density of the flying devils I’ve ever experienced - but well worth it for the shots!

Tonight’s clouds made for a lackluster Henge - but the sunset still made for some gorgeous shots!

Sea Creatures! From jumping fish, a river so densely packed with salmon that you could almost walk across it, starfish, to barnacles - little delights everywhere!

On this rainy morning, here’s a rainbow of Alaskan flowers to liven things up!

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}

Awards and Features

Daily Inspiration

​