Monthly Archives: June 2019

Garden Photography Workshop – Capturing the Great Gardens of Maine – Time is running out!

There’s still time to enroll for my week long course in garden photography at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine again this year. The dates are August 11-17, 2019. Click here for a full workshop description, and for registration.

Special July Sale: 20% Off. Use code JULY4PHOTO at checkout. Discount will be applied at final billing. July 4th at 7:00am through Sunday, July 7th at midnight.

I’m very excited to add some new, private gardens with exclusive access to this curriculum. This workshop is the only way you will get to see, let alone photograph, these gardens.

Besides field photography of gardens, the workshop will cover a variety of studio and post-production techniques related to flower photography (see the detailed description here). The goal is to help you create a coherent body of work related to garden and floral photography based on your unique vision.

Please consider joining me for a glorious week of Maine, photographing gardens, and flowers!

Giverny © Harold Davis

The agenda of this workshop includes plentiful field sessions in a variety of kinds of gardens accessible to Maine Media Workshops & College in Rockport on the mid-coast of Maine. August is a great time of year for flowers in bloom along the Maine coast! Classroom sessions will focus on specific areas of technique, and also the theory and practice of garden design in the context of photography, as well as working with individual participants to develop a cohesive and personal body of work. Click here for a full workshop description, and for registration.

Salutation to the Sun © Harold Davis

Posted in Workshops

San Francisco Reflections

Wandering with a friend in downtown San Francisco last week, I was struck by all the new construction, and how much things have changed. Over the past half-dozen years I have mostly wandered more exotic paths—Son Doong Cave in Vietnam, the Kumano kodo in Japan, the Camino de Santiago, and more—and have seldom set foot in San Francisco.

The place has changed, almost beyond recognition. What struck me most in the area around Salesforce Tower is all the modern, reflective windows, which sometimes provide echoes of a distant and almost forgotten past, now alienated and completely separate from the present.

Rage Against the Grid © Harold Davis

Rage Against the Grid © Harold Davis (1 Sansome St)

Time Travel © Harold Davis

Time Travel © Harold Davis (1 Sansome St)

We cannot enclose the clouds © Harold Davis

We cannot enclose the clouds © Harold Davis (1 Sansome St)

What windows do we want? © Harold Davis

What windows do we want? © Harold Davis (45 Fremont St)

At the conclusion of our walk, we headed across the top of the Broadway Tunnel to Chinatown, which in contrast to the slicker downtown seems pretty much as it always was, a bustling enclave of tourists and Chinese-Americans doing their thing.

Here’s a “sort of take the photographer’s life in his hands” fisheye of the eastern mouth of the tunnel. You can see the light trail of a vehicle that was too close and too fast on the right of my position, and my companion as a kind of “ghost” on the left hand side of the image.

Broadway Tunnel © Harold Davis

Broadway Tunnel © Harold Davis

Posted in Photography, San Francisco Area

Food ink blot

I made this image using milk, water, olive oil, vinegar, and food colors, and then photographed the result.

Food Ink Blot 1 © Harold Davis

Food Ink Blot 1 © Harold Davis

Posted in Abstractions

Photograph Tokyo Workshop (Oct 2020)

 

Click here for more information, and here for the Reservation Form.

Posted in Workshops

Flowers that Remain

I had a great Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop over the weekend, with a nice group of workshop participants who were eager to learn, and I think had fun! I’m looking forward to scheduling the workshop again next year, in June of 2020. If you are interested in this workshop, keep your eye out for it on my Workshops & Events page (or add yourself to my email list for an alert), as I do this workshop only once a year, and it does fill up.

What do you do with left-over flowers? There were quite a few that remained from the workshop, so I put them on my largest light box, and photographed them as a block of blossoms.

Flowers that Remain Behind © Harold Davis

Flowers that Remain Behind © Harold Davis

Of course, it is hard to create a wall of flowers like this one without also wanted to invert the composition in LAB color.

Flowers that Remain Behind Inversion © Harold Davis

Flowers that Remain Behind Inversion © Harold Davis

During the workshop, I created some demos to show various techniques. This first image was a collaboration, with workshop participants handing me flowers. I was arranging them in real-time in front of the group, which doesn’t have quite the serenity of the way I prefer to work, but was fun, and I think came out okay.

Bouquet © Harold Davis

Bouquet © Harold Davis

I use this circular image to demo painting in transparency by sampling petals, and then painting in the values.

Mandala with Clematis and Poppies © Harold Davis

Mandala with Clematis and Poppies © Harold Davis

A singleton poppy made a nice and simple demonstration of the formula for adding a flower to a scanned background.

Poppy on Papyrus © Harold Davis

Poppy on Papyrus © Harold Davis

Posted in Photography, Workshops

Photograph Southwest France with Harold Davis (Spring 2020)

 

Click here for detailed itinerary, and here for the Reservation Form.

Posted in Workshops

Making a Flower Block and LAB Collage

Last week I photographed a medley of flowers from our garden on the light box, with one result shown in a previous story. The flowers together formed almost a kind of color block print:

Flower Block on White © Harold Davis

Flower Block on White © Harold Davis

Running the block print image through LAB color adjustments, I couldn’t help enjoy the variations, and constructed an eight-panel collage. Each panel represents an LAB channel equalization or inversion, all based on the original flower block. Click here or on the collage to view it larger.

Collage of LAB Flower Blocks © Harold Davis

Collage of LAB Flower Blocks © Harold Davis

For more on how this collage was made, check out my Creative LAB Color in Photoshop course.

Posted in Photography

Surreal Lady Fish

Take one model (Katlyn Lacoste). Make two in-camera studio multiple exposures of the model using strobes on a black background. Turn the exposures sideways, and mix and match in Photoshop. Add Harold’s eye. What do you get? A surreal lady fish.

Surreal Lady Fish © Harold Davis

Surreal Lady Fish © Harold Davis

Posted in Multiple Exposures, Photography

Papaver Triptych

The Nearly Perfect Poppy close-up is the center panel of the Triptych. Click here or on the image to view it larger.

Papaver Triptych © Harold Davis

Papaver Triptych © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Nearly Perfect Poppy

Waking up to a morning of partial sunshine, I saw this new, glowing, orange Poppy blossom in the plantings along our front porch. It was definitely dappled and dawn-drawn. Although I have met and photographed many fine Papavers in my life, this one seemed nearly perfect to me in every way.

Nearly Perfect Poppy © Harold Davis

Nearly Perfect Poppy © Harold Davis

If you are interested in how I photographed this flower, I brought it indoors and suspended it over a black velvet background. I used diffused sunlight for ambient backlighting, and added an LED macro flash for fill from both sides. The camera was my D850 on a heavy-duty RRS tripod. I used 60mm of extension tubes with my 85mm Nikkor t/s macro. A +4 close-up filter graced the business end of the lens.

I exposed for 30 seconds at ISO 64 and an effective aperture of f/64.

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Waves on Drakes Beach

Today I reprocessed this image of Waves from a while back so that the photo would work for a substantial enlargement. I wanted to keep the soft quality of the breaking waves in the background while sharpening the foreground just a smidgen, all while interpolating the image a bit larger. The tool I used was Topaz A.I. Gigapixel, and I think it (and I) did a fine job.

Waves on Drakes Beach © Harold Davis

Waves on Drakes Beach © Harold Davis

Posted in Photography, Point Reyes

Announcing Romantic Southwest France (April 29-May 7, 2020): Photography in the Lot River Valley

We are pleased to announce a new destination photo workshop to southwestern France in the spring of 2020. Join a small compatible group of photographers in a 15th Century fortified farmhouse in the lush countryside of southwest France in the springtime. We will be hosted at the  Mas de Garrigue, a 15th century fortified farm near the Lot River in the heart of romantic southwestern France. This is an area of gardens, gourmet French home cooking, ancient medieval villages and castles, and a photographer’s and walker’s paradise.

Click here for more info, here for the detailed itinerary, and here for the Reservation Form. A significant early-bird discount applies for enrollment by August 15, 2019. Please keep in mind that this destination photo workshop is filling fast!

Confluence of Two Rivers © Harold Davis

Our group will meet at a special hotel in Toulouse in the southwest of France on the afternoon of Wednesday April 29, 2016 where we will be spending the night. After exploring Toulouse, we’ll transfer by private mini-bus to Mas de Garrigue in the area of Calvignac on the banks of the beautiful Lot River. Along the way we will stop at the historic city of Albi, with its ancient bridge over the Tarn River.

Morning Mist © Harold Davis

The Lot is a region of beautiful rivers and valleys, stark cliffs with ancient clinging villages, sacred pilgrimage routes, stone bridges, churches that date from the era of the crusaders, beautiful flowering gardens, and much more. 

Cordes sur Ciel at Dawn © Harold Davis

Click here for more info, here for the detailed itinerary, and here for the Reservation Form. A significant early-bird discount applies for enrollment by August 15, 2019.

Posted in Workshops

Papaver Rhoeas Medley

It was fun to spend a slow weekend morning with the family at home. Everyone was engaged, no one was bored or whining or hungry. I photographed flowers from our garden: Poppies, delphiniums, and roses. The idea was to make a great color explosion. The music to photograph by was Pink Floyd and Bizet’s Carmen. The central flowers are Papaver rhoeas ‘Falling in Love’.

Papaver Rhoeas Medley © Harold Davis

Papaver rhoeas Medley © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Nautilus X-Ray Series

I made this series of X-Ray and Fusion X-Ray Nautilus shell compositions in collaboration with Dr. Julian Köpke in April in Heidelberg using conventional digital x-ray equipment and DSLR cameras, and yesterday was able to find some time to process the images. If this kind of imagery interests you, e.g., digital X-Rays, fusion X-Rays, or imagery of Nautilus shells, also check out: X-Ray portfolio; Tulip X-Rays and Fusion X-Rays; X-Ray Flower Medley Fusion; Nautilus Within Without; Nautilus X-Rays; Nautilus in Black and White.

Nautilus Shells LAB © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells LAB © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on White © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on White © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on Black © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on Black © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on Black - Fusion © Harold Davis

Nautilus Shells on Black – Fusion © Harold Davis

Posted in X-Ray

Exploring Tokyo for Photographers (Oct 24-Nov 1, 2020)

Photograph Tokyo with Harold Davis and Mark Brokering (Oct 24-Nov 1, 2020)

One of the truly great cities of the modern world, Tokyo is extraordinarily photogenic, and surprisingly easy to get around in. When the maple trees change color in the autumn, and ultra new meets ancient and old, Tokyo can be particularly beautiful. Please click here for details of the itinerary, and click here for the Reservation Form!

An early-bird discount applies until Oct 31, 2019.

We look forward to exploring Tokyo with you.

Join acclaimed photographer Harold Davis and co-host Mark Brokering for the experience of a lifetime in Tokyo exploring the culture, food, and art of Japan—all with our cameras!

Umbrellas, Tokyo © Harold Davis

Japanese cuisine is probably my favorite food. And I am not alone in this affinity. Did you know that there are more three-star Michelin restaurants in Japan than in France?

I feel lucky to be exploring Japan with someone as knowledgeable about food and cooking as Mark Brokering. Mark has been teaching cooking classes at Williams-Sonoma for the past year. And he has been enjoying the cooking of his Japanese sister-in-law for decades. He’s been to Japan many times for work and for family visits. He tells me that noodles like ramen and soba, a staple of Japanese home cooking, are ideal anytime—breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

You may also not know that in Japan there are a wide variety of tasty egg dishes, including assorted tamagoyaki (kind of an egg-roll omelet) and tamago sushi (rice topped with sliced cooked egg and wrapped around with a strip of Nori seaweed).

Of course, if you’re into sushi, you won’t find another country that offers raw fish in such variety and elegance of preparation.

On this photo trip, we will explore the Tokyo culinary scene together, making sure that there are plenty of comfort food options, as well as ventures into the exotic and unknown.

Buddha Samadhi, Tokyo © Harold Davis

Here’s what some participants in past travel workshops with Harold Davis had to say:

  • “Had an awesome time with Harold and the workshop participants.  Itching to go back.”
  • “What an agreeable group of travel companions they were! A once-in-a-lifetime experience that I plan to repeat next spring!”
  • “Would follow Harold and his camera anywhere!”
  • “Harold has great skill, without the ego of most master photographers. Travel arrangements were perfect.”
  • “One thing I really liked about the photo tour that Harold set up is that we had plenty of time to photograph in the best locations, and really prioritized when the light would be good.”

An early-bird discount applies until Oct 31, 2019. Click here for itinerary details and other information, and here for the Reservation Form.

Posted in Workshops