Whittaker was born and brought up in Drogheda, Ireland. His bookselling career - secondhand and rare - began in 1976 on the Charing Cross Road in London, and continues to this day in Charlbury, Oxfordshire.

In 2003 he published the first in a planned series Footnotes on a Landscape: Engagements with Art and Place in West Penwith. The first study, published as Zawn Lens, Words & Images from West Cornwall included not only his own amazingly evocative photographs in colour and black & white, but also poetry and memoirs of a number of the Penwith artists and creators: Peter LANYON, Tony O'MALLEY and Jane O'MALLEY, Bryan WYNTER, Colin SCOTT, W S Graham, Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM and Rowena Cade amongst others. Though an art photographer, with many exhibitions to his credit, David is also an accomplished writer.

His photographs of West Cornwall have been shown at the Arts Club in Penzance, and in mixed shows in St Ives.

There is also a Cornish born painter in mixed media of the same name, see David WHITTAKER (Kernow)