Baden-Baden is a prosperous spa town at the edge of the Black Forest and near Germany’s border with France. A famous place to try to recuperate from tuberculosis in the nineteenth century, Dostoevsky lost his shirt at the casino in Baden-Baden. More recently, Baden-Baden has once again been favored by rich Russians.
Dark Angel from Baden-Baden © Harold Davis
A short trail through the woods leads to the ruins of the Three Castles—more like three towers, really—that are perched on a ridge above Eguisheim, Alsace, France. The structures date to the 1200s, and they were “destroyed in 1466 in the ‘Six Deniers War'” [according to the signage]. Memo to self: look up the Six Deniers War, it sounds very Game of Thrones-like.
Ruins of the Three Castles © Harold Davis
I got some decent sleep on the long-haul flight over to Paris, and at the airport caught the train to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace, a region of France on the border with Germany. I had to change trains once. My hotel in Strasbourg is in an area known as La Petite France—notable for canals, picturesque and very old buildings, and the tourist trade.
La Petite France © Harold Davis
I wakened to thunder and lightening the first morning, in my room perched high above the old city. As the day slowly dawned, I watched the dark clouds scuttle across the sky. Very dramatic.
Stormy Morning in Strasbourg (Color Version) © Harold Davis
The tower of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg was the highest building in Europe until the nineteenth century, and a marvelous Gothic spire it is! I climbed three hundred steps to the platform below the spire, where in olden times guards lived 24/7 to watch the city for fires, and the horizon for enemies. Strasbourgians, if that is the right term, came up here for picnics on holidays. Today, it is a perfect location for photographing the rooftops of ancient Strasbourg from above.
Rooftop © Harold Davis
There’s plenty to see and photograph in Strasbourg without climbing towards the sky. Wandering the twisting streets a few blocks from my hotel I was intrigued by the optical pattern made by the wood design in an antique door.
Op Door © Harold Davis
I’m beyond excited about heading back to Europe in a few days for an extensive photography trip that will include one of my favorite cities, Venice. May the photographic stars, weather Gods, and assorted creative juices (all of which combine to be “the Force”) be with me!
Venice Canal © Harold Davis
What: Step into the fabled Japan of myth and legend. Journey back in time to a Japan that few westerners are familiar with. Join a small group of compatible photographers led by Harold Davis and a professional guide for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Click here for the detailed day-by-day trip itinerary (“Prospectus”) and here for the Reservation Form. Our in-country partner is Oku Japan.
When: Sunday October 15 – Wednesday October 25, 2023.
Where: We meet at our hotel in Tokyo, Japan. After exploring the new and old sides of Tokyo, we’ll travel back in time through the Japanese Alps via the ancient Nakasendo way. We’ll visit well-preserved villages in the Kiso Valley, Matsumoto Castle, the castle town of Takayama, and the World Heritage site of Shirakawa-go. Following a stop in the culturally important city of Kanazawa, we will wrap up the destination photo workshop with a dreamlike visit to the gardens and temples of Kyoto, where the tour will end. For full details, please see the Prospectus.
Group Size: This is an exclusive, small photo workshop (non-photographer significant others are also welcome) with very limited space availability (the minimum group size is six and the maximum is twelve).
How to Register: Please send us an email expressing interest right away; a completed registration requires a $1000 deposit, the trip Reservation Form, a copy of your Covid vaccination card, and a copy of your currently valid passport page.
Pricing & Early-Bird Discount: We are pleased to keep the pricing at the same level as 2022, and to offer an early-bird discount by November 30, 2022. Please see the Reservation Form for details.
About the ancient Nakasendo Trail:
Where will this path lead us? The town of Magome hugs the side of the mountain, and the Nakasendo Trail here is lined by inns, wood crafters, and small eating establishments. What waits beyond? The ancient signboards at the top of the town warn travelers the rules of travel with an admonishment to be on your best behavior in town. Now, as you head out of Magome, your journey really begins – views over mountain peaks give way to the ancient Nakasendo as it winds behind farmhouses and small shrines lovingly tended by their neighbours. You pass waterfalls, and stands of bamboo and you walk a section of old paving stones. The path is wide like a smile, welcoming you into the woods.Will you have long conversations with your friends, perhaps new, perhaps old? Will you listen as the cicadas or the crickets or the frogs sing to you?—Oku Japan
Step into the fabled Japan of myth and legend. Journey back in time to a Japan that few westerners are familiar with. Join a small group of compatible photographers led by Harold Davis and a professional guide for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Our in-country partner is the very well-regarded off-the-beaten track Japan travel specialist, Oku Japan.
Please consider joining us October 15-25, 2023 now that Japan is open. This is a small group with high demand, but we still have a few spaces available. Please call or drop us an email right away if you are interested. This is a unique opportunity, and we will be privileged to make this journey.
Starting in Tokyo, we will end in Kyoto. Travel is by gentle trail (with luggage transport), train, and where appropriate private vehicle. We meet at our hotel in Tokyo, Japan. After exploring the new and old sides of Tokyo, we’ll travel back in time through the Japanese Alps via the ancient Nakasendo way. We’ll visit well-preserved villages in the Kiso Valley, Matsumoto Castle, the castle town of Takayama, and the World Heritage site of Shirakawa-go. Following a stop in the culturally important city of Kanazawa, we will wrap up the destination photo workshop with a dreamlike visit to the gardens and temples of Kyoto, where the tour will end.
Click here for more information, here for the detailed day-by-day trip itinerary (“Prospectus”) and here for the Reservation Form.
My Maine Media Workshops Composition & Photography group visited an antique fire engine restoration atelier housed in a large barn. I gather this is one of the few antique fire engine restoration workshops in the country.
Fire Engine Restoration © Harold Davis
Mostly, these vintage engines are used in parades. In the image below you can see a framed painting on the wall showing a horse drawn fire engine from the “good old days”—what some of these fire engines must have looked like in their own time.
Fire Engine Restoration 2 © Harold Davis
While the workshop seemed a bit chaotic, it is remarkable the care they were taking in restoring these old engines to their full glory!
Enough Is Enough © Harold Davis
The two very different images shown in this story have something in common: digital darkroom prowess. In other words, both images make extensive use of post-production tools and techniques to arrive at a “look” that seems fairly natural. As a side note here, even naturalness is a concept that depends upon expectations, cultural awareness, and individual sensibilities.
Tripping the Glass Fantastic © Harold Davis
High-end photography has always relied on post-production. Very little imagery looks its best straight from the camera. Anyone who is still skeptical of digital photography should note that this was as true for wet, chemical photography as it is for digital. A large part of the art is (and was) in post, whether on the computer or in the darkroom.
Lonely Tree © Harold Davis
Photographic composition, analyzed in my recent book on the subject, is one of the least mutable parts of the photographic discipline, but even in composition there is no categorical certainty of alignment with “reality,” whether the image relates to party leaders snipped from history following the show trials of old Bolsheviks, the wonderful fantasies of Jerry Uelsmann, or my own Impossible images.
I’ll be demonstrating some of the most important post-production tools I use in an upcoming webinar, Out in the World: The Making of Four Photos.
Taos Pueblo is a World Heritage Site, and believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited structure in North America. The core of the present adobe complex was probably initially built between 1000 and 1450 A.D.
The church of San Geronimo de Taos, shown at the bottom, is the third church built on the site, and dates to 1850 (although the Spanish first assigned a missionary priest to Taos Pueblo in 1598).
Taos Pueblo © Harold Davis
Taos Pueblo 2 © Harold Davis
San Geronimo de Taos © Harold Davis
Free Live Webinar presented by RockyNook | Thursday October 13 at 11:00am PT
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.
Edward Weston once wrote in his Daybooks that “to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” To this, Ansel Adams added that “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
To resolve these two semi-paradoxes, 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 learning to truly see and creative composition into each participant’s visual practice. In other words, this webinar should interest anyone who wants to find out more about creating images that work and about the creative process of composition in photography.
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.”
The 2022 Photographic Society of America Progress Award winner, 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.”
Victor is a gold mining town in Colorado. Partially depopulated, located at an altitude of almost 10,000 feet on the southwest shoulder of Pikes Peak, it is part of a National Historic District. Known as the “City of Mines,” Victor was at its most populated in the late 1800s, when a great deal of gold ore passed through the district, and the population reached 18,000 (today it has 397 residents).
Splendid Pleasures, Victor, Colorado © Harold Davis
One tourist-oriented website puts it this way:
We are a unique setting of 1890’s mine structures and turn-of-the-century brick buildings, unique shops and restaurants, as well as hiking trails, museums, and gold mining experiences. We have clean, cool mountain air and plenty of year-round sunshine. What we do not have – stoplights, chain stores, traffic, or anything resembling the rat race!
Tatlow Building © Harold Davis
On a cool autumn afternoon, on my way to Colorado Springs, I passed through Victor with my camera. I found the place intriguing. Most of the brick buildings date from 1899, when they were rebuilt following a devastating fire. There’s a definite nostalgic “cat house” aesthetic, with the locations of prominent brothels sign-posted (also check out the billboard in the background of the photo of the old tow truck at the top of this story). As opposed to the nearby town of Cripple Creek (bottom photo), there is no apparent move to base the town economy on gambling.
Victor © Harold Davis
I wish I had more time to spend photographing Victor, and hope I get to visit this very interesting area again.
God Bless America © Harold Davis
Cripple Creek, Colorado © Harold Davis
