The simple pleasures of waterdrop photography can be entrancing, and there is often ample complexity close to home, as in this composition of a waterdrop on a leaf, piggyback on yet another leaf!

Piggyback Waterdrop © Harold Davis

I wanted to touch base before I leave for France on Sunday. As you likely know, I will be leading a photography workshop in Paris. This is one of my dreams come true! My plan is to keep in touch by posting photos and stories from Paris about the ongoing adventure. You can also check the Photograph Paris with Harold Davis meetup group for updates and photos from the workshop.

Before I leave I also wanted to alert you to a few opportunities related to Botanique, my Monochromatic Visions Kickstarter project, and my workshops.

Thanks always for your support, interest in my work!

My very best wishes for adventure and photography,

Harold Davis

Copies of Botanique ARE available

Acclaimed as “origami in a box” and said to be “destined for major museums,” Botanique is an innovative artist project that astutely blends old craft and cutting edge new technologies to create an exquisite limited edition art book and art object that is completely unique.

Here’s how one viewer put it: “That would have to be the most beautiful floral photography I’ve seen…evident in the fact that I sank down onto my keyboard, totally relaxed thinking “oh how beautiful”. I can only dream of owning such a beautiful book.”

A washi Unryu fold-out print within Botanique

Although Botanique is selling well, and despite some stories that the edition has been sold out, we do have some copies still available. The current price (for numbers 12-15) is $1,200. The Botanique presentation ships with white gloves for handling and a signed print of Red Poppies on Kozo Washi. The fine print: $50 shipping is additional. Sales tax is also additional (for CA residents only).

According to Popular Photography Magazine, the floral prints of Harold Davis “border on the spiritual.” Botanique contains twenty-one luscious floral prints that emerge delicately and seductively from the hand-assembled presentation box. The clam shell box measures approximately 9.25″ X 12.5″ X 1″ deep.

Click here for more information about Botanique.

If you are interested in a copy of Botanique, please contact Phyllis, phyllis@bearhome.com.

Red Poppies © Harold Davis

The Monochromatic Visions and Beyond

The original idea of my Monochromatic Visions Kickstarter project was to fund the creation of a new monochromatic portfolio edition of my prints. This goal was very quickly reached, so I added a second “stretch goal”—to go to Japan and create a second washi portfolio of images from the old Japan road, Kumano kodo.

This goal is well underway, and I’d appreciate any support you can give it.

Currently, the Monochromatic Visions portfolio is available on Kickstarter for $1200, and there are two $650 copies available of the Kumano kodo portfolio.

I want to point out that prints from the individual portfolios are also available, starting as low as $200 including shipping. You can choose any of the prints from the Monochromatic Visions portfolio at this price, which represents a very substantial discount off the normal price for prints from my studio (it is $550 and up).

You can only take advantage of this offer via the Monochromatic Visions Kickstarter project.

Click here to visit the Monochromatic Visions Kickstarter project.

Workshops

I have rescheduled the Composition in Night Photography webinar for Thursday, July 11, 2013. Click here for information and registration.

There are currently limited spaces available in the following workshops:

• 2013.06.22—Full Moon Workshop: Photograph the Golden Gate Bridge Like You Never Have Before: hands-on adventure with Harold Davis (one space available)
• 2013.06.23—Full Moon Workshop: Photograph the Golden Gate Bridge Like You Never Have Before (second session): hands-on adventure with Harold Davis (four spaces available)
• 2013.12.07—2013.12.08—Photographing Flowers for Transparency: Two Day Workshop with Harold Davis—a unique opportunity to learn Harold’s techniques, workshop location is Berkeley, California. Limited space is available.

Ancient Music of the Stars © Harold Davis

What folks have said about Harold Davis workshops and events:

•  “A great artist and speaker!”—W. Anglin
•  “Harold is genuine, generous, and gracious – He has a world of knowledge and expertise that he loves to share – his wonderful books show his monumental talents and skill set- his workshops shows the depth of his connecting with others in a very real and personal way.”—P. Borrelli
• “Awesome! He patiently addressed questions from the audience which contained photographers of all levels , molding his answers to the level of understanding for each of us. His presentations covered a wonderful range of technical knowledge as well as emphasizing the need for images to have an emotional quality. The images he shares are breathtaking and he is generous in sharing many facets of how he captures such beauty.”—J. Phillips
• “Not all photographers are good verbal communicators. Harold is someone who can DO and TEACH. A rare combination of talents.”—B. Sawyer
• “Inspiring!”
• “He was very giving of his talents and time. The course was very organized and thorough. Loved it! Learned so much!”—L. Beck
• “Very creative and a marvelous instructor.”—Kay S.

About Harold Davis:  Harold Davis is a professional photographer whose work is widely admired and collected. He is the author of many bestselling photography books. Harold Davis is a Moab printmaking Master.

We’re pleased to announce my new Kickstarter project, Monochromatic Visions. Monochromatic Visions is a highly collectible, limited edition portfolio of twelve prints by master photographer Harold Davis. The Monochromatic Visions portfolio presentation is strictly limited to twelve numbered copies, plus three artist proofs. Here are thumbnails of the twelve images in the portfolio:

The photographs in Monochromatic Visions were created using high-dynamic range (HDR) techniques that will be explained in my forthcoming book Monochromatic HDR Photography from Focal Press. This process involves sequential multiple digital RAW exposures, or a single RAW exposure processed multiple times. The blended exposures or processes are then rendered into a single color master file. The final color version of the image is then remastered to monochrome, using innovative layering and processing techniques of my own invention.

Check out Monochromatic Visions on Kickstarter.

This is a photo of a very small shell sometimes called a “Sundial” (of the architectonica genus). It is less than an inch across, and shown elsewhere on my blog in color.

My idea in making this photo was to create a monochromatic image that emphasize the contrast in the shell’s spiral between the white lines and the darker portions of the spiral, and implying the color gradations in the shell’s spiral, and the patterned nature of the shell as a whole.

Shell Spiral © Harold Davis

Exposure data: 85mm macro lens, six exposures with shutter speeds ranging from 1/8 of a second to 4 seconds, each exposure at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted; images combined in Photoshop, and converted to monochromatic using LAB inversions in Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex.

Recently, my friend and photography student Jack Tasoff died in a four-wheel-drive accident in a remote area of the Anza-Borrego desert.

I first met Jack a number of years ago. I was scouting a location for a photography workshop in the Patriarch Grove of ancient Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountains of eastern California. My camera was on a tripod, and I was shooting the textures and folds of the bark of one of these 4,000 year-old trees.

Jack came up to me and asked, “Do you know anything about the photography workshop that is going to be happening here in a few days?”

“Well,” I replied, “my name is Harold Davis, and I am leading the workshop.”

Jack looked at me and considered for a moment. Then he said, “Hm…I thought ‘Harold Davis’ would be lean and handsome like Calvin Klein, not an overweight patzer like the rest of us!”

Seeing the Light © Harold Davis

Those who knew and loved Jack probably realize that tact wasn’t his strong point. But as time went by, and Jack and I continued to correspond every week, I truly began to appreciate the breadth of his knowledge and insights, and how much he savored life. We discussed everything, from Ming vases and Titian paintings to botany, biology, and individual motivations. Every interaction with Jack was entertaining, and every discussion gave me unusual insights. Jack saw the world in his own way. He was a true original, and in my book no greater compliment can be made.

Jack had a gentle side. He could be loud, and carried a big lens, but he cared deeply about little creatures. He enjoyed most of all seeking out and photographing small, endangered animals.

I miss Jack already, and know that this sense of loss will only grow as time goes by. One consolation is that he was out doing two things he loved—photographing wild animals, and travelling in the desert. May his wonderful spirit find beauty and joy.

You can find some of Jack’s photography on his website wee tim’rous beasties.

In “Botanique”: Harold Davis’s Origami in a Box on the Moab Paper blog you’ll find a story about a mystery package. Here’s how the story begins: “A mysterious package arrived in our office the other day. After carefully unwrapping the paper, the most beautiful portfolio of images was unveiled.”

The story continues: “Acclaimed as ‘origami in a box,’ Botanique is a hand-made, limited edition artist book that astutely blends old craft and cutting edge new technologies to create an exquisite limited edition art book and art object that is completely unique. Holding a print of a delicate floral image printed on Moenkopi Unryu felt as though I was holding the actual flower. The portfolio shipped with white cotton gloves, which reinforced the book’s museum-quality.”

Thanks Moab Paper!

Read the full story on the Moab Paper blog; find out more about the Botanique limited edition artists book.

Botanique includes three oversize pull-outs like the Star Magnolia panorama shown on Unryu washi paper

There’s an almost infinite appeal to me in photographing railroad tracks—appropriately, because the visual metaphor of the railroad track is to show rails that are parallel and never touch. They go on forever, or seem to. So railroad tracks are, in other words, a representation of the infinite.

Railroad Tracks near Gaviota, California © Harold Davis

The crucial point in railroad track compositions is the vanishing point. The viewer’s eye will proceed along the tracks to the point at which the tracks seem to come together and vanish. Of course, the tracks never really come together, and a vanishing point is a trick of perspective rendition. But to do an effective job of making a railroad track image one needs to accomplish something interesting at the supposed vanishing point.

In my image of Railroad Tracks near Gaviota, California this interest is generated by the stormy sky, and by the bend to the right in the tracks towards the distant hills and beach.

In the Anza Borrego desert the hard-scrabble town of Borrego Springs, California loses most of its population in the summer, when temperatures soar and stay above 110 degrees Fahrenheit. One part of the indigenous population stays put—the creatures created by metal sculptor Ricardo Breceda. My favorite is the huge dragon,or serpent, shown here photographed at sunrise using my fisheye lens.

Dawn of the Dragon © Harold Davis

The serpent in the Anza-Borrego reminds me somewhat of the Serpent Mother (a creation of the Flaming Lotus Girls).