Monthly Archives: February 2022

Composition & Photography: A Hands-On Workshop

February 28, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

What: Composition & Photography: A Hands-On Workshop with Harold Davis

Where: Maine Media Workshops + College in beautiful Rockport, Maine

When: Sept 12, 2022 – Sept 16, 2022

Click here for more information and registration.

Description: In this hands-on workshop we will approach composition as an instance of open-ended two-dimensional design. Photographic exercises will start with simple shapes, such as lines and circles, and proceed through patterns and repetitions, and onwards to spirals, fractals, and abstractions.

Field sessions will take advantage of the “target-rich” mid-coast Maine scenery. Classroom discussions will be intended to provoke thought about composition basics and continuing to enable individual integration of the process of composition into each participant’s creative practice.

Tulip Pano © Harold Davis

Posted in Photography, Workshops

Donation to Doctors without Borders

February 27, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

Thanks to the participants in the Creating Structure with Forms and Patterns webinar yesterday we are delighted to donate $712.88 to Doctors without Borders.

Posted in Photography, Workshops

Harbinger of Spring

February 26, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

I remember when I lived in colder climates seeing the daffodils, green shoots with a yellow blossom, push their way through the frozen ground. So for me, daffodils will always be a harbinger of spring, and spring a sign of hopeful renewal, no matter what is going on in the world around me.

This Bunch of Daffodils is one of a Bunch of Bunches—although sometimes a mixed arrangement ages in an interesting way, as in Flowers for Miss Havisham.

Daffodil Bunch © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Last Chance for France

February 17, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

Last call for France, at least in April 2022, and with our small, exclusive photography group! We are finalizing arrangements for this trip shortly, and will be closing it to new enrollments. We do have an opening for either a single or a couple. If you are interested, please let us know in the next few days. Thanks.

Click here for more information, here for the Prospectus, and here for the Reservation form (includes pricing info).

Cordes sur Ciel at Dawn © Harold Davis

Posted in Workshops

Flowers for Miss Havisham

February 14, 2022 by Harold Davis | 1 Comment

Flowers for Miss Havisham (below) completes the quartet of four images begun with Earthly Delights, and continued with Aging in Place and Remembrance.

Flowers for Miss Havisham © Harold Davis

Remembrance © Harold Davis

Aging in Place © Harold Davis

Earthly Delights © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers

Remembrance

February 11, 2022 by Harold Davis | 1 Comment

The flowers remember when they were young. The easy, sensuous unfurling of Earthly Delights is long past. With Aging in Place the grace of youth is gone, but joy and strength are in full bloom. Today’s image shows just as much beauty with the inner core of youth and resilience supplanted and tempered with wisdom—along with a tinge of melancholy, since all things must pass.

Remembrance © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Contemplating a return to the “new normal”

February 9, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

Here’s some of what we are working on (while contemplating a return to a “new normal”):

Click here for our complete Workshops & Events schedule. We are keeping an eye out for when my two postage stamps will be issued (sometime in 2022).

Petal Dancer © Harold Davis

Posted in Photography

Composition & Photography eBook now available; you can pre-order the print book directly from the publisher

February 7, 2022 by Harold Davis | 1 Comment

My new book Composition & Photography:Working with Photography Using Design Concepts is now available for pre-order from the publisher’s website. The estimated publication date is May 31, 2022. The eBook is ready for download now. May I suggest the eBook and print book bundle, available at a nice discount to the unbundled price for each?

Speaking of a nice discount, please use the discount code COMP40 for a 40% discount at checkout (of course, this more than pays for the incremental cost of the bundle). This discount code only works on Rocky Nook’s website (the wonderful publisher of my new book).

My book has some unusual ideas from a wide range of disciplines, visual puzzles, and thought exercises, so please let me know what you think!

Posted in Photography, Writing

Interior Views of Flowers

February 7, 2022 by Harold Davis | 1 Comment

For this week’s interior views of flowers, I used my macro probe lens placed inside the outer petals of the floral blossom. The upper image of a tulip is lit from behind by a light box. The lower image, inside a paperwhite, is lit with a ring light on the probe. For more interior flower images, check out Inside Lisianthus, the links within that story, and elsewhere in the flowers category on my blog.

Purple Tulip © Harold Davis

Paperwhite—Inside View © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Aging in Place

February 6, 2022 by Harold Davis | 2 Comments

I left my arrangement of tulips, iris, and daffodils on its black velvet stage. Several days later, the bouquet had aged in place. It was still beautiful, but in a very different way than when it was younger.

Aging in Place © Harold Davis

Posted in Flowers

Earthly Delights

February 2, 2022 by Harold Davis | 3 Comments

My first love in art was color. It took me years to appreciate monochrome. As a (relatively and sometimes) mature artist, I understand that black and white lays open the bones of the composition, and I appreciate a good monochrome image as much (or more) than the next photographer.

Earthly Delights © Harold Davis

But as a young painter, I reveled in color. My affair with color began with the impressionists and post-impressionists, particularly Monet’s paintings of his garden at Giverny, Gauguin’s lush fantasies of the south seas islands and islanders, and of course Van Gogh. Soon, my horizons widened to infatuation with expressionists such as Emil Nolde, abstractionists such as Arshile Gorky, and color field painters, particularly Mark Rothko.

Life teaches us many things, not all of them lessons we wanted to learn. Color, I found out, is kind of a “cheap date.” Sure, color will entice and entrance you, but will it go the distance?

That said, when nature puts out its color finery, as in the bouquet I arranged for Earthly Delights, I am surely not above reveling in the simple and flamboyant pleasures of polychromatic imagery.

Posted in Flowers, Photography

Creating Structure Using Forms and Patterns [Webinar Benefits Doctors without Borders]

February 1, 2022 by Harold Davis | 0 Comments

What: Creating Structure Using Forms and Patterns with Harold Davis | Benefits Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières).

When:Saturday February 26, 2022 at 11:00am PT. Duration between one and two hours, including Q&A

Where:  Live webinar on your computer or mobile device from anywhere via Zoom. This is a benefit webinar, with pre-registration required using your Zoom account. A tuition payment of $19.95 is required for enrollment. All proceeds benefit Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f2rskyGUT7iSXSC3Gd272g

Details: Of all the magical elixirs that make up a successful photograph, composition is perhaps the most fundamental, and at the same time the most elusive. What makes a composition “good”? It’s hard to define exactly, but we instinctively recognize good composition when we see it. There is an undeniable emotional response when a composition resonates with and complements the subject matter of an image.

But traditional attempts to define “good composition” and to pass on rules for good compositional construction are often doomed to failure. The truth is, there are no hard and fast rules. Rules eliminate experimentation and spontaneity which are crucial for creating compelling, dynamic, and exciting compositions. The best compositions contain an element of the unexpected. “Expect the unexpected!” is perhaps the only viable “rule” of composition. To create exciting compositions, you must have a willingness to embrace serendipity and change as part of your artistic practice. After all, composition is a process, not a result.

Endless Doors © Harold Davis

In this webinar Harold approaches composition as an instance of open-ended two-dimensional design. Photographic examples and “thought experiments” will start with simple shapes, such as lines and circles, and proceed through patterns and repetitions, and onwards to spirals, fractals, and abstractions. The webinar will present ideas from Harold’s new book Composition & Photography, and will be intended to provoke thought about composition basics.

The goal of this webinar is to enable individual integration of the process of composition into each participant’s creative practice.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A.

Who should attend: Anyone who wants to find out more about creating images that work and about the creative process of composition in photography.

Number of Seats, Tuition, and Benefit: The tuition for this webinar is $19.95 and requires prior registration. All proceeds benefit Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), but the ticket price is not tax deductible.  You must register via Zoom to be enrolled in this webinar! If you haven’t paid the tuition, you aren’t registered. Please contact us in advance with any questions.

The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f2rskyGUT7iSXSC3Gd272g

About Harold Davis: Harold Davis is an internationally known photographer and a sought-after workshop leader. According to Popular Photography Magazine, “Harold Davis’s ethereal floral arrangements have a purity and translucence that borders on spiritual.” He is a Moab Master and a Zeiss Ambassador. He has exhibited widely and his prints are extensively collected. In 2022, several of his images were selected by the United States Post Office for use as postage stamps.

Rangefinder Magazine states that “Harold Davis is a force of nature—a man of astonishing eclectic skills and accomplishments.”

Harold Davis is a bestselling author of many books, including Composition & Photography, Creative Garden Photography and Creative Black and White, all from Rocky Nook.

Harold Davis’s website is digitalfieldguide.com.

Posted in Workshops