Monthly Archives: October 2017

Announcing a new session of Photographing Flowers for Transparency—June 23-24, 2018

October 7, 2017 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

We’re pleased to announce by popular demand a new session of Harold’s acclaimed Photographing Flowers for Transparency weekend workshop, to be held in Berkeley, CA Saturday and Sunday June 23 and 24, 2018. Enrollment is limited. Registration opens Jan 1, 2018 on a first-come-first-served basis.

Click here for more information about this workshop, here for the Photographing Flowers for Transparency FAQ, and here for Harold’s upcoming event, workshop, and destination photo tour schedule. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

The Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop is a great deal of fun, and covers Harold’s light box techniques as well as related topics (see the partial list below). If you are interested in Harold’s unique approaches, this is the best way to learn. Each participant will produce their own fully processed images following Harold’s lectures and demonstrations, and with Harold’s personal hands-on supervision.

Flowering Dogwood & Friends © Harold Davis

Topics covered in the Photographing Flowers for Transparency Workshop include:

Floral arrangement and composition
Botanical art in the digital era
Shooting on a light box
Understanding high-key post-production
Working with Photoshop layers
High-key HDR
LAB color effects
Backgrounds and textures
Preparing to make floral pigment prints
Tips & techniques from Harold Davis
Implementing one’s own vision

Flowers at School © Harold Davis

Here are what some participants in Harold’s recent Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshops have said:

“Harold is unmatchable! An honor to be able to be able to have him as a mentor…. for photography and for life.”
“AWESOME!!! Harold has a great teaching style, and it was great to learn some new shooting and post-processing techniques.”
“Excellent!!! Recommend to anyone who wants to take their flower art to the next level.”
“Amazing teacher! Patient, knowledgeable, thoughtful and sharing, easy to learn from. Looking forward to many more workshops with Harold! What a total gem… “

Floral Composition © Harold Davis

From Harold’s introductory note to workshop participants:

My belief is that folks learn most when they are hands-on, and having fun. So we will be doing a great deal of flower arrangement and flower photography—and I think along with new ways of seeing, you will learn some techniques, and ways of using your camera, that may not have occurred to you before.

These new approaches are great with flower photography, but also go way beyond floral subject matter, and are really applicable to many kinds of photography.

Besides floral photography, floral arrangement, working on a light box, and various kinds of special lighting effects, we will be exploring high-key HDR, post-production in Photoshop, backgrounds and textures, and LAB color, and much more. As you can see, it will be a very special, busy, and creative weekend!

Kiss from a Rose © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Workshops

A Tale of Two Flowers

October 6, 2017 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Some flowers were naughty and some were nice. The question was, would the naughty flowers find their inner goodness and be willing to wilt to save the innocent blossom? Would the madness of the revolting peasants—truly deplorable this time—prevail, or would society pull back from the brink of chaos? Stay tuned, and put your money on the Dahlia or the Sunflower.

These are the kinds of fantasies we amuse ourselves with as we wait for sixty second exposure to conclude, camera on tripod, hardly daring to breath!

Sunflower Central © Harold Davis

Dahlia in Scarlet © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Dandelion Center for Triptych

October 5, 2017 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

I prepared this black and white split version of a dandelion core for a triptych, with the split black/white version flanked by an LAB inversion of the image on the left and a “straight” version on white on the right. I think the image works well on its own, but you can also see a version of the triptych assemblage as designed at the bottom of this story.

Here’s the way I intend the triptych to be displayed (these prints are fairly large) from black through gray to white:

Posted in Photography

San Francisco Sunset from Port Oakland

October 1, 2017 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

Yesterday I hosted a Meetup primarily to provide a forum for Rafael of PhotoPills to explain the PhotoPills planning software to interested photographers, and also for the fun of hanging out with fellow photographers. There were old friends and new friends, but first we almost ended before we began, as the original location at Middleshore Park in Oakland was usurped by a concert. Quick on our feet, we changed the location to Port View Park, a short distance away, where we socialized on a pier, listened to Rafael, and photographed the spectacular sunset.

Image above: three combined exposures, each exposure at 78mm, f/7.1, and ISO 64, tripod mounted; exposure times 2.5 seconds, 5 seconds, and 8 seconds. Image below: photographed at 300mm, handheld, 1/8000 of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 200.