Harold Davis's Blog, page 118
December 30, 2016
Big Sur Coast from Bixby Bridge Overlook
As sunset turns to dusk, and dusk to night, colors linger on the towering westward-facing Pacific cliffs of the Big Sur peninsula. Long after the landscape is a murky, dark gray to human eyes, the camera explores, captures, and records these gorgeous colors.
Big Sur Coast from Bixby Bridge Overlook © Harold Davis
Photographed looking south from the overlook at the north end of Bixby Bridge about an hour after sunset with my camera on the tripod. Three combined exposures at 78mm focal length: 90 seconds and f/8 at ISO 64; 90 seconds and f/8 at ISO 200; 30 seconds and f/8 at ISO 64. Exposures processed in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) and Photoshop, using Nik and Topaz filters, and my own LAB color techniques.
Related stories: Bixby Bridge; Bixby Bridge Blues; Bixby Bridge by Starlight.
December 29, 2016
Night Vision Exhibition at the Weston Gallery
Yesterday I made a photographic trip to the Big Sur coast. It was a spectacular day for photography, and some images will no doubt follow in the due fullness of time! I was pleased to be able to stop in Carmel-by-the-Sea to view the Night Vision: Photographing in the Dark exhibition at the Weston Gallery.
Me at the Weston Gallery
Yes, that’s me in the iPhone snapshot between a print of one of my favorite Ernst Haas images, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969, and my own Starry Night.
Since you can’t really see my Starry Night image from the iPhone shot I’ve reproduced it below. It’s a real honor (thanks Weston Gallery!) to be included along with Haas and many of my photographic idols such as Bernice Abbott, Wynn Bullock, Robert Frank, Michael Kenna, André Kertész, and Jerry Uelsmann. A spectacular print of the famous night seascape with a lightening strike by Bob Kolbrener is also included in the exhibit.
One interesting point is that most of the photographs in Night Vision are in the old school tradition: silver-halide prints made on photo sensitive paper using an enlarger, mostly photographed with medium or large format film. I think the Haas image and mine are the only color prints in the exhibit, and I think mine is the only digital (rather than film) photo.
Night Vision will be on display until January 8, 2017. If you are in the Carmel area, or get the chance to visit, I strongly urge you to stop by the Weston Gallery and check out this beautiful exhibition. While Night Vision should be particularly be of compelling interest if you want to become a better night photographer, anyone who is simply interested in fine photography shouldn’t miss the chance to check it out.
Starry Night © Harold Davis
December 22, 2016
Greetings of the Season
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December 19, 2016
Mums the Word
I pulled these pretty images of a field of chrysanthemums on a light box from my files, and processed it the other day. Did you know that “Odour of Chrysanthemums” was D.H. Lawrence’s first published prose fiction, accepted by Ford Maddox Ford, the then editor of The English Review, partly on the basis of the subtlety of the title—chrysanthemums in fact only smell faintly.
Related story: Digital Pop Art.
Mums the Word 2 © Harold Davis
Mums the Word © Harold Davis
December 15, 2016
My Best of 2016
2016 is a year of the fire monkey. This is by way of saying that one should rightfully have expected the unexpected. The monkey is a trickster, and not always kind—like Coyote and Loki a divine spirit, but a divinity whose intervention can have unforeseen and sometimes undesired consequences.
Personally, my work has taken me abroad at home, and at home abroad—with some unexpected adventures and side trips along the way.
Regarding travel, I like to say, “Want to make more interesting images? Then put yourself in front of more interesting things.” But the external world only goes so far, so the next step is to say, “Want to make more interesting images? Then become a more interesting person.”
In an early chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, it becomes clear to the ring-bearer Frodo (and the reader) that unspeakable evil has risen again from the shadows of the past. The following dialog between Frodo and the wizard Gandalf ensues:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
In that spirit, I wish you health, joy in life, and the comfort of creativity in the coming year!
With that, and without too much further ado, please check out my self-selected best images of 2016 (in more or less chronological order, click on each image to see it larger).
If you have the time and inclination, perhaps in a quest for inspiration, you can also peruse my Best of 2015, Best of 2014, and Best of 2013.
Orchids in a Blue Bowl © Harold Davis
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Upper White River Falls © Harold Davis
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Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge © Harold Davis
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Cordes sur Ciel at Dawn © Harold Davis
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Shout to the Soul © Harold Davis
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Nude Descending a Ladder © Harold Davis
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Conjuror © Harold Davis
Coming to Life © Harold Davis
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Wheel of Flowers (on White) © Harold Davis
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Sunflower Ambrotype © Harold Davis
Pont Neuf, Toulouse © Harold Davis
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Planet of the Succulents © Harold Davis
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Fedora © Harold Davis
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Manifestation © Harold Davis
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Eye of Sauron in His Cups © Harold Davis
Dawn on Lake Como © Harold Davis
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Duomo di Pavia © Harold Davis
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Tuscan Landscape © Harold Davis
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Towers of San Gimignano © Harold Davis
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Golden Gate Splash © Harold Davis
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Long Exposure Wave Study 2, South Beach © Harold Davis
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Flower Tondo 1 Variation Inversion © Harold Davis
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Floral Tondo Variations
Which of these versions of my first floral tondo do you like better? My favorite is Flower Tondo 1 Variation Inversion, shown immediately below on black, without the fancy curvilinear “virtual” framing of the original version (and the bottom variation). What do you think? Comment or write and let me know if you have a choice!
Flower Tondo 1 Variation Inversion © Harold Davis
Flower Tondo 1 Variation © Harold Davis
Floral Tondo Inversion 1 © Harold Davis
December 14, 2016
Floral Tondo
Tondo is a Renaissance term for a circular painting. To create my floral tondo, I started with a circular pattern on my light box. I arranged an array of petals—mostly alstromeria but also some rose petals and Agapanthus blossoms—around the central core of a rose. I then photographed the composition for transparency (see my FAQ for more info on this technique).
Floral Tondo 1 © Harold Davis
In post-production, after processing my high-key layer stack, I added a black background to emphasize the tondo effect, and used the Warp transform in Photoshop to make the flowers seem to slightly wrap around the white space created by the circular background.
December 12, 2016
Five Minute Wave Exposures
In the practice of modern photography, an exposure as long as five minutes duration during daytime hours seems like eternity. This is particularly true in the context of the raging Pacific Ocean along the outer beaches of Point Reyes, which is always churning and in frantic motion.
To achieve this effect near sunset on South Beach, with my camera on a tripod, I added a +4 neutral density filter, a polarizer, and lowered the ISO while stopping the lens down (I’ve noted the full exposure data below; these exposures shifted as the scene got darker).
From a visual viewpoint, the long exposure time reduces the seascape of beach, waves, and sky to elemental horizontal lines—perhaps almost a landscape in the sense that a Rothko color field painting is a landscape. Looking at this in another way, the long exposure time performs a kind of mathematical role, and reduces the random chaos of the storm-tossed inter-tidal zone to the basic overall patterns, teasing out consistency where nature produces apparent chaos.
Long Exposure Wave Study 2, South Beach © Harold Davis
Exposure data: Both images Nikon D810, +4 ND filter, circular polarizer; Upper image: 44mm, 299 seconds at f/29 and ISO 31; Bottom image: 65mm, 299 seconds at f/16 and ISO 64.
Long Exposure Wave Study, South Beach © Harold Davis
Related story: Face of the Deep.
December 11, 2016
Calligraphy of Flowers
I am a great fan of artistic calligraphy, particularly as seen in Japan and in historic Islamic cultures. So when I arranged these flowers on my light box I tried to very loosely emulate the appearance of the graceful form of the Bismillah. Nature is the language of the divine, and surely whatever one’s culture one can say it using flowers.
Calligraphy of Flowers on White © Harold Davis
Calligraphy of Flowers on Black © Harold Davis
December 9, 2016
Flowers Round-Robin in a Workshop
This image was made as an in-class demo of light box flower arrangement and post-production. I called on each workshop participant to choose a stem, then arranged them one-by-one on my light box. The top image is an LAB inversion of the composition, the middle image is placed on a scanned background using my background placement blending mode algorithm, and the bottom image is shown as photographing for high-key HDR on a white background.
Flowers 12.03.16 Inverted Version © Harold Davis
Flowers 12.03.2016 with Background © Harold Davis
Flowers on White 12.03.2016 © Harold Davis
