Photoblog 2.0

Succulent, photo by Harold Davis. Click to view larger.

Despite what you may think, this photo owes nothing to Photoshop. I boosted the ISO late yesterday afternoon so I could take this image of a succulent in failing afternoon light at reasonable shutter speeds for hand holding.

With an ISO of 1,000, there was a great deal of noise added to the image (appearing as colored pixels if you look closely at the image in its larger size).

Also, light colored and lightly saturated areas in the subject went white–meaning they lost their pixels. In contrast to gaining the world and losing one’s soul, this pixel loss is a case of losing one’s pixels and gaining a pattern.

I am put in mind that all too often digital photographers think a photo can be saved (or essentially created) in Photoshop. Photoshop has many wonderful capabilities, which one should know about as one takes pictures. But there’s no substitute for properly visualizing at the time a photo is taken what the end result is likely to be.

A corallary: the built-in bracketing inherent in Raw conversion into Photoshop is just swell–but you’ll be happiest if you expose right smack dab in the middle of the range in the first place, instead of having to salvage an exposure that is at the tail end of the curve.

Meta information: Nikon D70, LensBaby 2.0 with +10 macro filter, ISO 1000, f/4.0 aperture ring, 1/250 second handheld.

Bolinas Lagoon, photo by Harold Davis. Check this photo out larger for more detail.

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF-S VR-Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED at 200mm (appx 300mm 35mm equivalence); handheld using VR (vibration reduction).

Exif: ISO 200, 1/320 second, f/9.

Focus: Automatic, at infinity.

Post: Dark blue gradient applied with darker blue towards the bottom of the image, center lightened, routine level adjustments and workflow, fairly strenuous sharpening for Gaussian blur in the central (lagoon) area of the image.

I took this image a few days ago on a “field trip” with Nicky from the ridge line in Tamalpais State Park. What interests me is the pattern in the tidal Bolinas Lagoon. The flats are shown here at low tide.

Bolinas Lagoon is a fantastic and wild place, inhabited by seals and many other creatures, and with a huge tidal variation. It’s neat to see the buccolic farms in the distance behind this force of nature.

San Francisco Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. You can see more details in the larger version.

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF-S VR-Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED at 175mm (appx 262mm 35mm equivalence); handheld using VR (vibration reduction).

Exif: ISO 200, 1/125 second, f/5.6.

Focus: Automatic, at infinity.

Post: Considerable post-processing in Photoshop; see below.

Iconoclastic Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown once likened the cities of East Bay to Italian Hill towns. This is a little disingenuous from the chief executive of the city whose rough barrios spawned the Black Panthers. But there is something organic about the architecture of the Bay area, as I think this photo shows.

In the aggregate, houses and other structures seem to be part of the landscape, are one with the hills, and form patterns in the fog.

This photo was taken from Marin Headlands looking across the Golden Gate towards the Presidio and the Sunset district.

In Photoshop, I used the Image > Adjustments > Selective Color dialog to increase the saturation and detail of the background areas. Next, I applied a warming and split-gradient filters to slightly improve the tonality and colors of the image.

The last step was to perform routine level adjustments and sharpening.

Rose Spiral, photo by Harold Davis.

Meta information: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 (157mm 35mm equivalence).

Exif: ISO 200, 1/250 second, f/5. This was an exterior, daylight shot with considerable wind and motion, and handheld.

Focus: Manual, about 0.45 meter (around 1.4 feet).

Post: Cropping for compostion, routine level adjustments and workflow, sharpening for both Gaussian and Motion blur, color enhancement with a graduated dark blue overlay in Photoshop.

Spirals are often seen in nature. It’s surprisingly common for these spirals to be a visual representation of a series of numbers, such as the Fibonacci series. In the Fibonacci series, each number in the series is the sum of the two previous numbers.

However, I haven’t often seen this kind of spiral in a rose. So I was delighted to be able to photograph this one in the wind and sunshine of our front porch!

Bromeliad Pattern, photo by Harold Davis.

This is a re-post of an earlier blog story, with bromeliads added!

Bromeliads, toy slinkies, a single dandelion bud, irises, desert landscapes, and some of my photos on Flickr…

Fish Swirl, photo by Harold Davis.

Meta data: Nikon D70 Raw capture, AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED at 70mm (105mm 35mm equivalence).
Exif: ISO 200, 1/100 second, f/5.
Focus: Automatic
Post: Cropping, cloning out of distracting areas, routine level adjustments and sharpening.

There’s something fishy here, what it is isn’t exactly clear!

What interests me about this photo is the swirl patterns in the water around the fishes.

Piling of Damocles, photo by Harold Davis.

I took this photo from the old Ferry Point pier at 200mm with a 2X teleconverter–for an effective 35mm focal equivalence of 600mm. This accounts for the compressed perspective in the image.

I used a polarizer, and–naturally–a tripod.

It’s really hard to see what is holding these pilings up. From beneath, they are surely the pilings of Damocles!

Fig Bacchanalia, photo by Harold Davis.

I’ve been photographing grand landscapes of the Bay and Bridge. See Golden Gate Sunset, Storm over the Golden Gate, Above Us Only Sky, and Orange Sunset for some of these photos.

So for relief and fun I turned my macro lens close up on a lily (see Another Country and Adventures in the Lily Forest), a strawberry (Strawberry Fields), and a fig from our garden. These external close shots ended up looking very much like weird, alien landscapes. The fig from my garden actually could be mistaken for a real landscape when looked close enough (see Turkey Fig Cliff and Turkey Fig Crater).

What happens inside a fig close up–so I’m no longer scratching the externals but really digging in?

Inside the fig, I found aliens:

And a creche-style nursery:

Orifices (don’t ask):

And–of course–landscapes of the fantastic:

All this from a cute little modest-end-of-season Turkey Fig from our garden:

Turkey Fig Crater, photo by Harold Davis.

Another macro of the outside of a fig from our garden that looks like topography to me–here’s a fig cliff compared to a real landscape.

Turkey Fig Cliff, photo by Harold Davis.

This is a macro photograph of the skin of a Turkey fig from our garden.

Like the strawberry, it is a true blessing to have sweet fruit to eat from our garden this time of year.

One more example of photograph it, then eat it.

I am reminded how the very small can be mistaken for the very large. This macro of the fig’s skin reminds me a bit of the pattern of the giant-scale Zabriskie cliffs in Death Valley:

Strawberry Fields, photo by Harold Davis.

Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn’t matter much to me.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry fields forever.

No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right, that is I think it’s not too bad.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry fields forever.

Always, no sometimes, think it’s me, but you know I know when it’s a dream.
I think I know I mean a ’yes’ but it’s all wrong, that is I think I disagree.
Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hungabout.
Strawberry fields forever.
Strawberry fields forever.

Julian found this strawberry in our garden–probably among the last of our harvest for a couple of months, but still great to be eating from our garden’s bounty in mid-November.

First I photographed it, then I ate it!

Pretty Close Lily, photo by Harold Davis.

When you look at things close enough, they become another country–like this decorative lily petal. Are they bumps, or hills and craters? Or an abstraction?

Here’s another close view of this lily:

Under the Bridge 3, photo by Harold Davis.

I’m excited about these pictures from under the Golden Gate Bridge because the angle is unusual–and the patterns are interesting!

Whale Song of the Iris, photo by Harold Davis.

Phyllis got me some fresh Iris (from Trader Joe’s, not our garden!) and I’ve been photographing them as they open…

Zabriskie Point 6, photo by Harold Davis.

Here’s another image from my Zabriskie Point set that could be a close up of vegetation, or of a textile, or–as it actually is–not so close view of a desert landscape.