About Me
Photography has shaped every aspect of my life. My passion for the camera and the photographs themselves created an unexpected chain of events that has brought me to my current life. From the international recognition for The Intimacy Project, to running a newborn photography company, to meeting the love of my life, photography has been the main catalyst.
I learned early on that I’m a passionate and sentimental person. Photography has allowed me to be exactly who I am; to see the world differently and to be able to to share that with others. I enjoy using my perspective and artistic vision to capture people’s memories and the feelings that make them worth capturing in the first place.
Speaking of first place, Sept 17th I won in two categories for CityPaper’s Best of PGH 2025 Arts & Culture poll!
2025 Best Creative Photographer
Portraiture/Fashion
& Boudoir
This behind the scenes photo by Mars Johnson shows Artist Dawn photographing Jessie Sage, who wrote the two articles published in CityPaper featuring Dawn Hartman Photography and the LGBTintimacyproject.org CP Photo: Mars Johnson
Excerpt from Article
by Jessie Sage, September 17, 2025
“…In the nine years we have known each other, she has documented my family, my career, and my body through many life transitions.
I am not the only one who has this kind of relationship with Hartman. Last year, I wrote about The Intimacy Project, the LGBTQ artist advocacy project that launched her full-time photography career, but for her, that was only the beginning. “The Intimacy Project is what gave me the notoriety to build my business,” she told me over Zoom. “Because of that project, the queer community started telling people about me, and then they started contacting me to do families, weddings, boudoir, all of it.” It is this versatility that has gotten the attention of Pittsburgh, leading to being voted best portrait and boudoir photographer for 2025…”