Dawn Chorus Unbound © Harold Davis

Today I am thinking about a quote from Philip Pullman that I read in a recent interview with the author in The New Yorker Magazine: “Reason is a good servant but a bad master.”

Without tools of construction—and reason—it is hard to build an image like Dawn Chorus Unbound. But with too much reasoning in advance, one loses the Beginner’s Mind advantage: a sense of play, and being open to creative serendipity. 

In art, as in life, I try to keep a balance between analytic rigor and flexible thinking. One needs both modes, truly one does.

Rollback © Harold Davis

Shoshin is a word from Zen Buddhism that is often translated as “beginner’s mind.” Beginner’s Mind means having an attitude of openness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject or working as an artist, even when working at an advanced level, just as a beginner would in the best case analysis with a capable and flexible guide.

In the context of my own practice, and the way I teach students to approach their own art and photography, I take Beginner’s Mind to mean to approach my art with humbleness, playfulness, and experimentation—and to be prepared to happily fail.

I am now engaged in playing with a new body of work that involves my photography of flowers for transparency, LAB inversions, photography of pure light though colored liquid in glass bottles, and post-production. 

Over on my Instagram Feed, I was asked about the image shown at the top of this story: “I love this and I am so confused. Please explain how?”

That’s okay, I’m confused too about how I got here, and where this ride is going to take me next.

I didn’t want to be rude, but I didn’t want to explain the technical side of this work yet (if I ever am ready to do so). I replied, “Thanks for your interest! This is a new set of techniques I have started playing with, and I am not ready to share the ‘how’ yet. In the meantime, enjoy the magic….xxxooo.”

So, yes, please enjoy the magic.

Related story: Tacked to a Virtual Wall.

Scrolling Around © Harold Davis

Climbing the Columns © Harold Davis

Curled Epiphany © Harold Davis

Starting with a light box image of flowers arranged vertically (shown below), I created an L-channel LAB inversion, as well as a variant using the Exclusion Blending Mode. I curled the Exclusion Blending Mode version to the verso of the virtual inversion, and added the curled combination to a background “wall.”

To add a trompe l’oeil effect and some verisimilitude, I photographed a thumb tack on black in three positions (every corner but the curl), and added the tacks to hold the virtually double-sided flower composition on the virtual wall.

Flowers Are © Harold Davis

Almost Gone © Harold Davis

Photographed in 2006. Click here for the original blog story.

The replay of my Creative Black and White Opportunities webinar is now available for viewing on YouTube. I had a bit of problem with managing the software, and got “out of the gate” a little slowly, but if you have patience with the webinar I think you’ll find some worthwhile ideas about creative monochrome.

This webinar was organized and sponsored by Rocky Nook, the publishers of my new book Creative Black & White, 2nd Edition. In this webinar, I discussed the monochrome vision, and tips and tricks related to digital black and white photography, and included material on LAB inversions, solarization techniques, the Karl Blossfeldt effect, and x-ray imaging.

My new book, Creative Black & White, 2nd Edition, is now available. The publisher, Rocky Nook, is offering a 40% discount. Click here to buy Creative Black & White 2nd Ed directly from the publisher. Use the code “HDAVIS40” [no quotes] at checkout to apply the discount (you can also use my discount code for all other Rocky Nook books, by the way!).

Here are the links for my book on Amazon.com and on B&N as well, so the choice of supplier is yours, and here’s the link for the webinar replay on YouTube.

Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge © Harold Davis

Eiffel Tower with texture © Harold Davis

Regarding my LinkedIn Learning Photoshop Backgrounds & Textures course, a correspondent emails: “Thank you for making this topic so interesting. I’ve been accumulating photos of backgrounds and textures for years and have had very little success with using them in my composites. I now understand how they need to be tweaked with opacity and blending modes to get the effects I like….I think you are tops.”

Thanks! [blushing]

Check out my Photoshop Backgrounds & Textures course to easily add spice, interest, and artistry to your images. My online course is available from LinkedIn Learning a/k/a Lynda.com. 

Burning Off the Fog (texturized) © Harold Davis

Spoonerismo © Harold Davis

Looking at our sets of kitchen measuring spoons, with their patina and scratches from long use in a hard-working family kitchen, I noticed the pattern of concentric ovals, particularly when each set of spoons was positioned so that light hit the upper edge of each spoon, and was withheld from the concave interiors.

To control the light, and the reflections in the spoon interiors, we lined a large bucket with black velvet, creating a raised stage within the bucket, also on black velvet. This way I was able to control the light coming in across the measuring spoon sets. 

For both images I used a 100mm macro lens tripod mounted at f/22 and ISO 64. Each image is combined from eight exposures, with shutter speeds ranging from 1/4 of a second to 30 seconds.

Measuring Spoons © Harold Davis