Photoblog 2.0

Coastal Range Snow, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

It rained most of the night, and towards morning got cold enough to snow at the crest of the coastal hills. Snow is rare indeed around here. In the morning, Phyllis got the kids to school and I headed for the hills above Oakland. As the sun burnt the fog and snow away I made this image facing towards Mt Diablo. You can see the clump of trees on the upper left in this wider view from 2007.

Point Bonita by Moonlight, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

By the strong light of a waxing gibbous moon I photographed the outer Marin Headlands coast, looking south towards the Point Bonita Lighthouse, the Golden Gate straits, and the lights of San Francisco’s outer sunset district.

The final image is a composite combined in Photoshop based on three exposures. All three exposures were taken with my Nikon D300 at 56mm using a tripod. The variations were 1 minute at ISO 200 for the darkest areas, 1 minute at ISO 100 for midtones, and 30 seconds at ISO 100 for highlights. I used the in-camera exposure histogram to judge the exposures because the display on the LCD of a RAW image captured in these conditions is inherently unreliable.

Ninth Wave, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I went over to the Marin coast on a day with a high surf warning. There was wind, too. I captured this breaking wave directly into the sun using a fast shutter speed (1/1250 of a second) to stop the motion. The sun made the wave translucent and helped increase the contrast in the patterns on the water.

Exposure data: Nikon D300, 400mm, circular polarizer, 1/1250 of a second at f/40 and ISO 200, tripod mounted.

Cienfeugos Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

These two images were captured from the seventh floor balcony of the Hotel Jagua in Cienfeugos, Cuba.

Cienfeugos is a relatively prosperous city by Cuban standards, as you can see in the sunset view of the place. I created the image from five captures with shutter speeds ranging from 1/80 of a second (darkest) to 1/8 of a second (lightest). I combined the captures in Photoshop using layers and masking.

I didn’t use software specifically intended to create HDR imagery, but the hand combining I used here is an example of hand HDR. Contrary to what some people seem to think, you don’t need to use Photomatix or Photoshop’s Merge to HDR to create HDR imagery—and HDR can look relatively natural. See Tone Poem for a comparison of Hand HDR and Photomatix.

The night photo is of the Palacio del Valle, a rather tasteless neo-Moorish confection at the end of the Punto Gorda peninsula in Cienfeugos. The Palacio is now a restaurant and nightclub.

If you are wondering where the power for all the lights is coming from, look no further than the view of Cienfeugos (above). In the distance, a power generator is burning cheap Venezuelan crude and belching smoke into the sky.

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Malecon Moon, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I shot this view of the Malecon in Havana, Cuba from the small bluff that the Hotel Nacional sits on. (More about the Hotel Nacional later.)

The two minute exposure gave the clouds a chance to spread out and show their colors in the moonlight. This exposure would have blown out the Malecon itself in the foreground of the photo, so I used a layer mask and a gradient to combine in a darker version shot at 20 seconds.

You can see a row of people living their life along the Malecon sea wall. But the long exposure has “flattened” them in some strange visual way—so even the people seem to be merely accessory to the landscape.

Guiding Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

The Point Reyes Lighthouse is one of my favorite night photography subjects. This was shot during a recent workshop I gave with Point Reyes Field Seminars. I’m lucky that each of my night photo workshops has been allowed down the steps to the lighthouse, although the weather hasn’t always been the greatest!

Here are a couple of my all time favorite Point Reyes Lighthouse images: Night at Point Reyes Lighthouse and Edge of Night.

Night Cliff, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Facing the beach I turned around. The night cliffs were lit by moonlight. Sometimes there’s a story behind one, if only one looks.

Exposure data: Nikon D300, 18mm, 4 minutes at f/5.0 and ISO 200, tripod mounted.

Bixby Bridge 3, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Here’s the Big Sur coast of California and Bixby Bridge by moon and starlight. The faint colors of sunset linger, even though this is a thirty second, wide-open exposure. If you look closely, you can see the shadow of cliffs in the water cast by moonlight.

Shown earlier in the fog and clouds: Bixby Bridge 1 and Bixby Bridge 2. Background information: Steep Slope.

Exposure data: Nikon D300, 12-24mm lens at 12mm, 30 seconds at f/5.o and ISO 100, tripod mounted.

Pfeiffer Big Sur Beach, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur is a pleasure to vist anytime. It was particularly majestic on this moonlit night, as you can see in this two minute exposure that shows star trails and surf coming through the famous hole in the sea stack.

Exposure data: Nikon D300, 18mm, 2 minutes at f/5.0 and ISO 200, tripod mounted.

Big Sur, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

South of Point Sur, the cloud cover opened up. There was still a moving fog bank, so I had no idea what this eight minute exposure of the Big Sur coast would show. I was pleased to see the Milky Way in the photo, and the sense this image gives of a world spinning in space.

I enjoyed a “personal retreat” at Esalen as my base for night photography along the Big Sur coast. It was great getting back to Esalen in the middle of the night and warming up in the baths. Esalen is probably the closest thing I’ve seen to heaven on earth. Except when I’m there I keep looking over my shoulder waiting for the Morlocks to show up.

Lonely Tree, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

On the outskirts of abandoned Fort Ord, California, an overpass leads from the ruined rows of barracks across the highway. I stood on this bridge in the fog, waiting for darkness to fall.

This tree seemed to me to stand alone, heedless of the traffic zooming by. I underexposed the image to increase the effect of isolation and gloom, and with the plan of brightening car lights later in the Photoshop darkroom.

Bixby Bridge 1, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

On a recent foggy night, I photographed Bixby Bridge, one of the most iconic bridges on US 1 along the Big Sur coast of California.

Things started to get good, and I started to get really cold, when my exposure time reached 30 seconds. The upper red light you see as a line hanging the air is the tail light of a camper that was slowly driving across this 1930s bridge.

Exposure data: 16mm, 30 seconds at f/7.1 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.

Pond in the Sierras, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

This pond is found along the Tioga Pass road in the high country of Yosemite National Park. In Photoshop, I multi-processed the RAW file to make the sky darker and lighten the water.

Exposure data: 18mm, circular Polarizer, 1/160 of a second at f/11 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.

My Yosemite Dreaming set on Flickr.

Trees in the Fog, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

In blackest night, from the parking lot, in the wet and dripping fog, I looked at the silhouetted trees. There was street lighting behind the trees which glowed through, appparently creating an orange cast. However, I saw the scene in black and white.

I intentionally underexposed the image to make the outlines of the trees appear stronger. Exposure data: 56mm, 52 seconds at f/4.8 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.

Sumi-e Bark, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Sometimes it really pays to look close-up. The markings on bark that appear like a Japanese sumi-e ink painting of a landscape are, in fact, a macro detail of the grand old bristlecone pine shown below.

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