Iris on Black, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This is an Iris ensata ‘Azuma-kagami’, from the same planting as my photo of last spring. I used the same technique as Falling in Love and Gaillardia x grandiflora, combining three exposures and painting them together using layers and masks.
[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), three exposures with shutter speeds from 1/4 of a second to 2 seconds, all exposures at f/36 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
Gaillardia x grandiflora, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This flower is a Gaillardia x grandiflora ‘Oranges and Lemons’. Gaillardias are native to North America, and are sometimes called Blanket Flowers because of their coloration.
I’m using an eight foot long raised bed in my protected side yard to grow flowers for photography, and this Gaillardia is the first subject. As models go, I think my flowers will prove to be very pretty and cooperative. Another benefit: they don’t seek modeling fees.
I photographed this flower on a black velvet background using diffuse natural sunlight. A previous experiment had convinced me that a single point of focus wouldn’t create an image that was sharp all over the flower. So I made twelve varying exposures at three focus points, and hand layered them together for an HDR and HFR image.
Some related stores: Falling in Love, Red Flowering Dogwood Blossom, Gaillardia, Digital Photograms.
[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), 12 captures at shutter speeds from 1/2 of a second to 8 seconds, all at f/32 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
Golden Gate Reflections, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
There was a strong wind blowing at my Angel Island campsite, and my tent puffed in and out like a bellows. But a little after midnight, the wind totally cut out and the surface of San Francisco Bay turned as flat and reflective as a sheet of glass. I grabbed my camera and tripod, put on a polarizer, and got a bunch of exposures before the wind picked up again and the glorious reflections vanished.
Some hours later, emerging from my sleeping bag, I saw the rising sun kissing the top of San Francisco’s towers.
[Above: Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 95mm (142.5mm in 35mm terms), circular polarizer, 30 seconds at f/5.3 and ISO 100, tripod mounted. Below: Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 26mm (39.5mm in 35mm terms), 2/5 of a second at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
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Big Dipper, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
While shooting the Star Trawler and Pole Star sequence, I noticed that the old, wrecked trawler Point Reyes could be shot facing due north so that Polaris would be centered within a circle of moving stars.
I decided to come back to the spot on a moonless night for some really long shots that would capture circular star trails around the stationary Polaris. Driving into the sunset past Samuel Taylor State Park I headed into a fog bank, and when I got to Inverness it was foggy, windy, and cold. I almost didn’t get out of the car. But I did, wandering down to the boat without my camera. As I looked up, I watched the sky clear.
Back at the car, I stripped and put on my woolen long underwear. It was going to be a long, cold vigil.
This was a warm-up test shot at three minutes (the 40 minute exposures came later). I like the way the Big Dipper is so clear and obvious in this photo.
For the curious, I supplemented the lighting on the boat with some discrete light painting with my head lamp. The trick, I find, is to keep the bursts of light short and constantly in motion.
[Nikon D300, 12-24mm zoom lens at 12mm (18mm in 35mm terms), 180 seconds (3 minutes) at f/5.6 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
Falling in Love on White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This is the Papaver rhoeas ‘Falling in Love’ that I photographed on a black background. The version here gives me the advantage of a “twofer”: I created the white-background version of the photo in Photoshop by inverting the Luminosity channel (in LAB color mode), then copying the orginal flower back on top of itself, and masking out the black. A few tweaks followed, but that is the general idea, and it is pretty simple to do. Which version do you like better?
[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), three exposures with at 1/2 of a second, one second, and 2 1/2 seconds, all exposures at f/36, ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
Falling in Love, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This is a photo of a Papaver rhoeas ‘Falling in Love,’ a double variety of Papaver rhoeas I got from Annie’s Annuals.
I cut a flower off the profusion of these poppies in our garden, and photographed this flower indoors. I put the flower in a glass flute to keep it upright, and placed the flute on a black velvet background. The background rested on a board and rod placed between two chairs. I positioned the flower so sunlight was striking it from behind and to one side. Then I used a large piece of soft gauze to soften the sunlight.
In Photoshop, I combined three exposures at times from 1/2 a second to 2.5 seconds to capture the full dynmaic range of the light falling on the delicate pink petals.
[Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), three exposures one at 1/2 of a second, one second, and 2 1/2 seconds, all exposures at f/36, ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
Related story: Here are some shots of the Dawn Chorus variety of Papaver rhoeas.
Looking Down, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
I took the original version of this photo (you can see it below) from the top of a rotunda in San Francisco City Hall. You can see a couple of people reading notices by a courtroom door, and the faint shadow of people in motion walking the corridors, rendered wraith-like by the long three-second exposure (selected so I could get plenty of depth of field).
The circular opening in the photo was actually pretty narrow, and the railing was high. The problem for me was getting my tripod in position over this balustrade. Even so, some tripod shadow and a tripod leg ended up in the capture, and I had to Photoshop them out.
With a decent rotunda view in hand, I pasted in four successively smaller (each copy was 20% of the size of the previous version) copies of the orginal image, to create a composite with the illusion of endless depth. This is the same technique I used in Endless Stairs and World without End.
As Phyllis says, “Down, down, into the pits of Hell, each a circle of bureaucracy lower in the pit!”
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[Nikon D300, 10.5mm digital fisheye, 3 seconds at f/22 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]
How time flies! Lo and behold, the babe in a basket has transmogrified into a boy in a box!
I photographed our Mathew Gabriel in the box at ISO 800 using my Canon G9, and then post-processed for noise reduction.
Sometimes things come together and the view out the Golden Gate is glorious. All you have to do is stand there and press the shutter release.
[180mm in 35mm terms, 1/800 of a second at f/11 and ISO 200, handheld.]
I came across these shadows on a cliff wall hiking the other day in Yosemite. Seeing them made me wonder – like the Platonic description of the life being flickering shadows on a cave wall – if all we are seeing are shadows (compared with the real thing).
Is the photo showing a shadow? Do the shapes make a glyph? Is the shadow more real than the tree that made it?
Julian asked me to take this picture of his stacked cars while he was in the bath! Reminds me of stonhenge, er, carhenge, but in the bathtub. My kids have a great imagination, and it’s fun helping them remember what they create by photographing it!
I particularly like the crtystal on top!
