Photo: Paul Mueller
My photography (TL;DR)
For years, the Bay Area’s CEOs, venture capitalists, technofuturists, artists, authors, and assorted fascinating humans have ended up in front of my camera. I’ve photographed executives such as Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Marissa Mayer, Palmer Luckey, Steve Jurvetson, Sean Parker, and Peter Thiel, as well as VIPs like Virgin founder Richard Branson, Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, and baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan for Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, and other magazines.
These days, most of my work is executive headshots. Companies bring me into their offices for a day or two to photograph their leadership teams so their official bio photos look professional, consistent, and like everyone actually belongs to the same organization. I also take on occasional advertising and marketing projects (for PG&E, Annie’s, and Intel), and I’ve recently begun offering headshots and portraits for individuals in my studio in North Oakland/Emeryville.
I’m meticulous about lighting, whether using studio strobes, constant video lights, or available light, but the real goal is simple: create an image in which the subject recognizes the best version of themself.
Some ancient history
I sprang forth from the nether world — sorry, wrong mythology. I was born in the Netherlands to Dutch-Indonesian parents, just like Eddie Van Halen, except my family chose to immigrate Phoenix over Pasadena.
In high school, I started building guitars and never quite stopped. Over the years I’ve made both acoustic and electric instruments, steel-string and nylon. My luthier claim to fame is an ebony- and rosewood-inlaid electric guitar I sold to Frank Zappa; fans know it as “Baby Snakes,” and it recently sold at auction for $375,000.
After the guitar-building era, I shifted into life as a sound engineer for popular Phoenix-area bands, while also working as a photo assistant and art photographer and teaching myself graphic design on the side.
I moved to San Francisco the week after the Loma Prieta earthquake. (I thought, “This seems like a good time.”) I went on to work as an art director and/or photographer for The City, The Nose, Might Magazine, and most notably Mondo 2000, a glossy publication that mixed technology, art, music, fashion, and psychedelics in roughly equal measure. Mondo has been enjoying a resurgence of interest thanks to projects like Mondo Vision: A Pictorial Survey of Mondo 2000 from Colpa Press, and the forthcoming Freaks in the Machine – Mondo 2000 in Late 20th Century Tech Culture from Strange Attractor Press, due out in 2026.
These days I live in Oakland with my wife, my teenage son, and two highly committed, contemptuous, and conniving cats. Drop me a line if you’d like to work together — or if you’re interested in adopting the cats.
Studio Hours
By Appointment:
Monday – Saturday
9am – 5pm
Don’t Follow Me
Bart Nagel Photography
Oakland/Emeryville/Berkeley
California, 94608
bartnagel@gmail.com
Bart Nagel lives in Oakland, California,
on the Berkeley/Emeryville border.
While most of my work is on location, I do have a full professional production studio* available for clients who prefer to come to me, with a large shooting area, green room, kitchenette, bathroom, and various setup options, including natural light, and the ability to almost fully black out.
The studio is located in what the real estate agents laughably call NOBE—North Oakland/Berkeley/Emeryville—dumb name, but a convenient location near the Bay Bridge, one exit off Highway 80 (between the Ashby and Powell Street exits). This neighborhood has had many names over the years; Paradise Park, Golden Gate, Klinknerville, Rancho San Antonio, and well before that, the land of the Huchiun Ohlone. The long slog of gentrification has brought us a 24-hour gas station, an excellent burrito truck, coffee shops, and this humble studio.
Parking is still relatively easy, the Amtrak Station is nearby, there’s a bus stop on the corner … but we are in the tsunami zone if (or shall I say, when) that happens.
*I also rent the studio to other photographers, videographers, and production companies.
