The area around Bethesda Fountain is one of my favorite haunts in New York’s fabulous Central Park. During the day it is always crowded with happy folks, musicians, jugglers, and so on. At night, the area looks like a stage set. This is a fisheye view through the underpass under the park drive towards Bethesda Fountain, shown both in black & white and color.
Tunnel to Bethesda Fountain (b&w) © Harold Davis
Tunnel to Bethesda Fountain (color) © Harold Davis
I’m giving a new, free webinar on Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 2PM PT, sponsored by Topaz Labs. The webinar title is The Artistic Image: From Start to Finish.
This is going to be a little different than my previous sessions for Topaz. I’ve heard in the past that folks like my ideas, and they like my images. But they want to understand the details and all the steps of my workflow. So I am going to get down and dirty!
I’ll take a handful of images (as many as we have time for, and still have some time for Q&A), and process these images in real time from RAW file(s) to finished art. Beware: You may not like what see! Sometimes it’s better to not know the details (politics and sausage-making come to mind). Your workflow may never be the same!
This is a free webinar sponsored by Topaz Labs. However, preregistration is required. My webinar is scheduled for February 28, 2017 at 2PM Pacific Time. Click here to register for this free webinar.
Tuscan Road © Harold Davis
Here’s the official webinar description: In this advanced webinar, renowned photographer and author Harold Davis will start with his RAW files, and show step-by-step how he creates his artistic images. This is a unique, behind the scenes look at how Harold accomplishes his acclaimed results, with Photoshop workflow and the application of plugins such as Topaz explained in detail. You are welcome to ask questions as Harold demonstrates each step, and also there will time for Q&A at the end of the webinar.
Harold Davis is the author of nineteen bestselling photography books, most recently Achieving Your Potential As a Photographer: A Photographer’s Creative Companion and Workbook, published by Focal Press. His new book, The Photographer’s Black & White Handbook: Making and Processing Stunning Digital Black and White Photos, is slated for early 2017 publication by Monacelli Press.
Be sure to stick around after the presentation for a Q/A session, webinar specific discount codes for our store and to see if you’re the winner of the copy of the Topaz Complete Collection we’ll be giving away.
On my recent trip, I stayed in New York in the belly of the beast, in a nice Eurostyle hotel at the corner of Tenth Ave and 42nd Street. Literally scores of fifty and sixty story high-rises are going up all over that neighborhood, and the New York I grew up in is close to unrecognizable. Can there really be enough New Yorkers with enough money to populate these opulent rental buildings that are coming on line, many with mirrored windows (as in this iPhone shot) or other interesting architectural features? I wonders, I does.
Building Reflections © Harold Davis
About the image: Captured using the Camera app on my iPhone 6s, and fairly minimally processed using the Snapseed, Mextures, and DistressedFX apps.
The dictionary says that oculus is a fancy term for a round, eyelike opening. The term has been borrowed for a system of virtual reality headsets, and I have photographed a rock formation called the Oculus in Antelope Canyon. In New York City, the Oculus is the architectural sculpture above a transportation hub near the World Trade Center, designed by Santiago Calatrava, and shown here in all its eyelike glory!
Oculus © Harold Davis
Today I guest-hosted an informal Meetup of New York photographers. We gathered at the bridge tower on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a great deal of talk about photography, many nice people, and I answered all the questions I could. The sunset looked to be unpromising, but as you can see it had its moments.
On the Brooklyn Bridge © Harold Davis
Exposure data: Nikon D810, 16mm fisheye, three blended exposures, each at shutter speeds of 8 seconds and ISO 64; f/8, f/11, and f/14; tripod mounted. Processed in ACR and Photoshop.
Cherry Branches for a wet and windy weekend! Phyllis brought these back from a neighborhood tree, and I photographed them using high-key HDR on a light box, then combined the images in Photoshop, and added a background. I hope you enjoy my image!
Cherry Branches © Harold Davis
For some other cherry blossom images click on these stories: Cherry Blossoms; Cherry Blossom Special; and Cherry Blossoms on Skin. Searching my blog for “cherry” yields quite a few additional entries! Clearly a wet, early spring in Berkeley is a great time to photograph cherry blossoms, as I have done across a number of years.
My new book The Photographer’s Black & White Handbook: Making and Processing Stunning Digital Black and White Photos is now available and shipping from Amazon and other book stores. Very exciting!
East River © Harold Davis
I will be in New York City for a brief trip from Monday February 20 until Friday February 24, 2017 in honor of the publication of my new book The Photographer’s Black & White Handbook.
Bethesda Fountain © Harold Davis
I will be presenting at the following events, which are free and open to the public:
If you are in the New York, I’d love to say Hi at one of these events!
Ghosts of Grand Central © Harold Davis
Storm in the Upper Harbor © Harold Davis
In my garden in the rain the hellebores are in bloom. These lovely bell shaped flowers face downward in nature in a wide variety of colors and internal configurations.
Hellebore © Harold Davis
It’s calming to photograph flowers and to realize that nature carries on. Flora worries on a different time scale about some of the things that make us fauna unhappy. These flowers have naturally selected for beauty, and there are worse things.
My friend and I woke in the darkness before the first light of dawn in our hotel near the Spanish Steps in Rome. We grabbed our cameras and tripods, donned our headlamps, and walked west to the Tiber River, which was swollen with autumn rains. The river itself ran sluggish and muddy in its broad channel between two steep embankments. A stair led down to the river bank, and a pedestrian path followed the river. As we walked towards the Vatican and central Rome, I noticed homeless camps beneath the bridges with the kind of makeshift shelters that you find in all the major cities of the world in places where poor people can escape notice for a night.
Ponte Sant’Angelo © Harold Davis
We stopped by the Ponte Sant’Angelo, originally built by the Emperor Hadrian in 134 A.D., to photograph the first light of dawn. This is a location in the heart of the ancient Roman Empire, and near to the core citadel of the Roman Catholic faith, but if you look carefully you can see the incursions of the modern world—the reflections of the lights of an Apple Store in the muddy waters of the Tiber River.
By popular request—a repeat of Harold’s unique Advanced LAB Color Seminar! Click here for details and registration!
Trio of Flowers via a LAB Inversion © Harold Davis
As one participant in the last LAB Color Seminar wrote, “I want to thank you so much for your help in discovering the power of the L-channel and LAB color generally.”
This full-day intensive post-production workshop is specifically intended to explore the creative possibilities inherent in the LAB color space within Photoshop. Learn about the glories of creative LAB color from one of its foremost and most creative practitioners!
Tulip Mandala on Black © Harold Davis
Understanding the creative use of LAB color in Photoshop unlocks a vast treasure trove of under-utilized and under-explored possibilities. Truly one of the secrets of spectacular color in Photoshop, if you know how to work creatively with LAB color you will far ahead of the game in terms of getting the results you want from Photoshop.
This workshop explains the structure of LAB color, and demonstrates inversions and LAB equalizations for both image optimization and creative fun. You will learn how to combine Blending Modes with LAB equalizations for an unlimited and powerful palette.
Not a Rose Garden © Harold Davis
This is information you will learn nowhere else. There will be ample time to experiment with adding LAB effects to your own work, with Harold’s guidance and feedback.
Harold says, “When I discovered LAB color, and how to use what has been called ‘the most powerful color space,’ I knew I was on to one of the great secrets of Photoshop.”
Click here for details and registration!
Repeating Flower Pattern LAB 2 © Harold Davis
Repeating Flower Pattern LAB 1 © Harold Davis
Repeating Flower Pattern © Harold Davis
Want to know more about me and what makes me tick than you may ever have wanted to know? Check out Behind the Lens with Harold Davis.
Panorama of the Kumano Sanzen Roppyaku Po © Harold Davis
My work in part defines me, and who I am defines, energizes, and bounds my work, and gives my art the power that it has. To fully understand my art and the man behind the lens, one needs to understand the unique path I’ve taken—which is definitely a “Road Less Traveled”—and learn a bit more about who I am.
Road Less Traveled © Harold Davis
This is a long and fairly detailed memoir, starting with I Was Born and All That, continuing through Photography 1.0 and my Technology Interregnum, and leading inevitably and relentlessly like a rough, slouching beast to Post-Photography Photography and a syncretic synthesis.
Self Portrait with Moustache © Harold Davis
Check out Behind the Lens with Harold Davis.
