Harold Davis's Blog, page 146
October 20, 2015
Discount Codes for Topaz Labs Creative Landscape Photography with Harold Davis Webinar
I’m appreciative that Topaz Labs allowed me to present my landscape photography in a webinar, and also to explain some of the techniques I use. One of the neat things about this kind of live format is that hundreds, if not thousands, of people from around the world can attend online.
Whether or not you attended the webinar, you can take advantage of the associated discount code for Topaz software. The discount code is “haroldweb2″ [no quotes], and will get you a 25% discount on all Topaz products. This discount is only good until Sunday, Oct 25, 2015. The link to shop Topaz is www.topazlabs.com/store.
If you missed my webinar, and would like to view the recording, after it has been edited it will be posted on youtube.com/topazlabs.
October 19, 2015
Special Harold Davis Print Offer
It’s time for holiday giving—or for a great present for yourself! We are offering four prints of my most iconic images. Each print is hand-crafted in my studio using archival inks, hand-signed using acid-free ink by yours truly, and printed on archival Moab Juniper Baryta Rag 305 gsm. Your choice of print is $250 (including shipping within the continental United States). This represents a substantial discount (roughly 75%) compared to our standard retail pricing by way of thanks for buying directly from the artist (that would be me!). The quartet of four Harold Davis prints can be yours (for a nice additional discount) at $795 for all four.
Please also keep our art editions in mind: We have limited hand-made copies of our acclaimed Botanique and the Kumano Kodo portfolio available!
Some details: Click here to learn more about Harold Davis prints. Alone I Stand and Road Less Traveled are printed roughly 11″ X 14″. Camellia and Nautilus on Black are printed roughly 12″ X 12″. More about the images below. Each print is $250 including shipping within the continental United States (contact us for international shipping costs), or $795 for all four including shipping. California residents add sales tax. Place orders no later than December 1, 2015 for Christmas delivery.
Placing a print order: To place a print order, send us an email or contact us by phone. We accept checks, credit cards (MC and Visa), and Paypal.
About Alone I Stand
A book contract brought me back to Yosemite Valley for several successive winters. Exploring the valley floor following a massive snowstorm, I found this indomitable old tree standing tall against the weather in Leidig Meadow. Mindful of the great artistic and photographic heritage of art depicted Yosemite, as I created this image I kept the heroic paintings of Albert Beirstadt in mind—as Beirstadt’s romantic view of Westward expansion echoed the theme of the ancient but indomitable tree standing tall against the weather.
Alone I Stand © Harold Davis
About Camellia
Photographing this image of an almost perfectly symmetrical Camellia Japonica was a controlled exercise in using a bracketed sequence of photos to build up a low-key image, starting from the darkest image. Technical concerns aside, as an artist my goal was to create a feeling of softness that enhanced and complemented the gradual shade into darkness, bringing out the sensuality of this gorgeous flower.
Camellia Japonica © Harold Davis
About Road Less Traveled
In his famous poem, Robert Frost wrote about two diverging roads, and about taking the one less traveled. The Green Dragon Buddhist Monastery nestles under the bluffs on the north side of the Marin Headlands, California. Departing after a retreat from the Monastery, I looked back at the road and saw two paths, one less traveled. Considering my own life as an artist belonging but apart from the society around me, I realized that my path would always be one that is less traveled. My way would be different, and not for the faint of heart. With these thoughts, I composed my image, and made my photo.
Road Less Traveled © Harold Davis
About Nautilus on Black
This image of a cross-section of a Nautilus shell represents to me the symmetry and order that can be found in the heart of nature, which paradoxically combines order and disorder in a most anarchic but orderly way. In the imperfection of the world lies its perfection, perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in the famous Nautilus spiral.
Nautilus on Black © Harold Davis
October 16, 2015
Workshop: From iPhone to Art
From iPhone to ART: The Art of iPhoneography
A Full-Day workshop with Harold Davis
The iPhone is the most used camera in the world. As they say, the best camera to use is the one you have with you, and this is often your iPhone camera.
But the fundamental rules of photography still apply, and you can become a powerful photographer with your iPhone by learning the fundamentals of exposure and composition.
Of course, your iPhone is more than just a camera. The computing power within a contemporary iPhone is greater than the computing power that sent NASA to the moon—and many photography apps take advantage of this “darkroom” in your pocket.
In From iPhone to Art, we will learn how to leverage our talents to make the best iPhone imagery we can. Demos, lectures, and hands-on exercises will explore the principles of photography as they relate to the iPhone camera.
Master photographer and Photoshop guru par-excellence will show you some of the apps he uses to finish his iPhone images. Advanced topics will include texturizing and layering iPhone images.
Registration: www.meetup.com/Harold-Davis/events/225214362/ (RSVP Yes to Register and pay the tuition, or contact us to pay by check)
Where: MIG Meeting Place, 800 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710
When: Saturday May 21, 2016, 9:45AM
Tuition: $99 per person.
What to bring: Your iPhone, and a sense of fun, wonder, and play! Prepare for the iPhone experience of a lifetime.
About Harold Davis
Harold Davis is an internationally-known digital artist and award-winning professional photographer. He is the author of many bestselling photography books including The Way of the Digital Photographer (Peachpit Press, awarded as a Top 10 Best 2013 Photography Book of the Year by Photo.net). Harold Davis’s most recent book is Achieving Your Potential As a Photographer: A Photographer’s Creative Companion and Workbook (Focal Press). His Photographing Flowers (Focal Press) is a noted photography “classic,” and is rated the Best Guide to Flower Photography byDigital Photographer Magazine.
In addition to his activity as a bestselling book author, Harold Davis is an Adobe Influencer, a Moab Master printmaker and a Zeiss Lens Ambassador. Harold Davis’s work is in collections around the world. It is licensed by art publishers, in annual reports, and has appeared in numerous magazines and many publications.
Harold’s black and white prints have been described as “hauntingly beautiful” by Fine Art Printer Magazine, and his floral prints have been called “ethereal,” with “a purity and translucence that borders on spiritual” by Popular Photography.
Recently Harold Davis’s work has been exhibited in venues including Photokina in Cologne, Germany, PhotoPlus Expo in New York, the Gallery Photo in Oakland, California, the Arts & Friends Gallery in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Awagami Gallery in Japan.
Harold Davis has led destination photography workshops to many locations including Paris, France; Spain and Morocco; and the ancient Bristlecone Pines of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.
Harold’s popular online course on Craftsy.com, Photographing Flowers, has thousands of students. His ongoing photography workshops in partnership with institutions such as Point Reyes Field Seminars, the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California, Maine Media Workshops, and the Heidelberg Summer School of Photography are continually in demand and popular.
According to Rangefinder Magazine, Harold Davis is “a man of astonishing eclectic skills and accomplishments.” You can learn more about Harold and his work at his website, www.digitalfieldguide.com and on his blog, http://www.digitalfieldguide.com/blog/.
October 15, 2015
Workshop: Get Your Camera Off Auto
Full Day Workshop: Get Your Camera Off Automatic with Harold Davis
Have you always wanted to take fantastic photos, but somehow they never seem to come out as well as you see them in your mind’s eye?
By leaving their camera in one of the programmed automatic modes many photographers fail to realize their full creative potential. At the same time, if you don’t shoot manually you won’t learn the basic concepts of photography. In this intensive one-day workshop you will learn all you need to know to successfully support your creative vision by using your camera to its full potential.
Besides presentations from award-winning master photographer Harold Davis, this workshop uses hands-on exercises to “cement-in” the concepts you will learn. So please bring your camera, camera manual, and tripod (if you have one).
Who is this workshop for?
If you’ve been enjoying shooting digital photos, but don’t really understand the underlying photographic concepts or what the camera settings do this workshop is a fun way to get quickly up to speed.
Perhaps you are used to shooting film and want to get up to speed on the concepts of digital photography. Then this intensive “Digital Photography 101” workshop may be for you.
Intermediate digital photographers may also be interested in this workshop as an easy way to help them reinforce and remember what they’ve previously learned.
Registration: www.meetup.com/Harold-Davis/events/225213519/ (RSVP Yes to Register and pay the tuition, or contact us to pay by check)
Where: MIG Meeting Place, 800 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710
When: Saturday January 23, 2016, 9:45AM
Tuition: $99 per person.
What to bring: Your camera, camera manual, tripod (if you have one), and a sense of fun and wonder!
Curriculum
9:45AM – Workshop orientation
10:00 – Fundamental concepts: Exposure, the exposure triangle, aperture, f-stops, shutter speed, sensitivity (ISO), sensor size, focal length, focus
11:00 – Setting your camera using the basic concepts
11:30 – Camera Clinic – first session
12:00 – Hands-on exercises
1:00 – Lunch break
1:45PM – Exercise review and concept refresher
2:30 – From camera to computer and digital post-production
3:30 – Hands-on exercises
4:30 – Review, wrap-up, and Q&A
5:30 – Camera Clinic – second session
What past participants have said about this workshop:
“It was a great day filled with both opportunities to practice and many words of wisdom from Harold.”
“This was a most informative and interesting workshop. It covered the things I wanted to learn about, and I left satisfied. I recommend it to anyone who wants a good basic class.”
About Harold Davis
Harold Davis is an award-winning professional photographer and widely recognized as one of the leading contemporary photographers.
He is the author of more than 30 books, including Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Worlds with Harold Davis (Focal Press), The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations (Focal Press), and The Photoshop Darkroom: Creative Digital Post-Processing (Focal Press).
Harold is the author of the Creative Photography series from Wiley Publishing.
“Harold Davis’s Creative Photography series is a great way to start a photography library”—Daniel Fealko, PhotoFidelity.
The Creative titles include: Creative Landscapes: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Lighting: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Portraits: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Black & White: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley). He’s also written a book on the fundamentals of exposure, Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers (O’Reilly Media).
Early Registration Discount Ends Soon: Photographing Paris in the Spring
Photographing Paris in the Spring with Harold Davis
A $500 early-registration discount applies before October 31, 2015. Click here to download the Reservation Form.
There’s nothing like photographing Paris in the spring! Let’s spend a week together this May making photos in Paris, and having a great time.
Photography begins with the medium of light, which the artist captures and applies to the canvas in endlessly surprising ways. And what better place to explore this medium than Paris, the City of Light?
Join acclaimed photographer Harold Davis for the experience of a lifetime in Paris, the birthplace of photography. There you’ll have the opportunity to experience firsthand the places and sights that have inspired artists for centuries.
Paris Sunset © Harold Davis
We’ll focus our lenses on Paris in bloom, Paris at night, and Paris in black & white, reinterpreting for ourselves some of the images that have been captured in paint and on film by many great artists, including Daguerre, Monet, Atget, Picasso, and Erwitt. We’ll have a grand time photographing and we’ll return home with many priceless shots to treasure!
Photo tour includes an excursion to Monet’s famous gardens at Giverny, with exclusive after-hours artist access.
Double Rainbow over Paris © Harold Davis
Harold’s photographs of Paris have appeared in books, exhibitions, and been published worldwide on travel sites.
Here’s what some participants in past Photograph Paris with Harold Davis Workshops had to say:
Eiffel Tower from Sacré Coeur © Harold Davis
“Had an awesome time with Harold and the workshop participants. Itching to go back. If you’re a photographer, Paris at night is a ‘Must Do!’. Put it on your bucket list ‘cause you may not see this in Heaven.”
“Photographing Paris at night in the company of a group of fellow photographers had instant appeal. Inspired by the scenes of Brassai, I imagined myself at the top of the steps at Montmartre, taking wonderful black-and-white images. I already admired Harold Davis, and had confidence that he would lead us to fantastic places – and he did! What came as a delightful surprise was the level of talent and variety of approaches that my fellow travelers employed to capture the marvelous churches, gardens, and people of Paris, Giverny, and Fontainebleau. I learned from every one of them. And what an agreeable group of travel companions they were! A once-in-a-lifetime experience that I plan to repeat next spring!”
“Harold has great skill, without the ego of most master photographers. Travel arrangements were perfect.”
“One thing I really liked about the photo tour that Harold set up is that we had plenty of time to photograph in the best locations, and really prioritized when the light would be good.”
Where: The group will be based out of a centrally located, elegant and comfortable 4-star centrally located Parisian hotel, such as the Hôtel d’Aubusson (or similar). The Hôtel d’Aubusson is on the left bank of the Seine, in the heart of the 5th Arondissment, and is located near many of the prime photographic locations.
When: Sunday May 1, 2016 (leave US April 30) to Saturday May 7, 2016 (six nights and seven days).
Group Size: This exclusive, small photo workshop tour is limited to ten photographers (non-photographer significant others are also welcome).
Pont Solferino © Harold Davis
Click here for details and theDay-by-day itinerary and here for the Reservation Form. I look forward to photographing Paris with you!
October 13, 2015
Spider Web Bokeh
The other day dawned here in Berkeley, California with low, clinging fog. It was like being in the middle of a cloud. The thing about this kind of weather is that it’s rare—and wonderful—to have the water droplets in the fog physically on myriad objects. Truly, they look like nature’s perfection, and it is paradise photographing delicate plants and the webs of spiders when these gentle fog drops stay put. Mostly, this is in the autumn when spiders begin to spin their webs in earnest.
Spider Web Bokeh © Harold Davis
The kids, as always, were up early, and so was I. When I noticed the wondrous fog, I threw on some clothes, gathered my camera with a Zeiss 50mm f/2 macro lens, put an extension tube in my pocket, and headed up the hillside to hunt water drops on spider webs.
My thought was to look for out-of-focus patterns in the light reflecting from the fog droplets on a spider web, with the term bokeh covering the general rubric of attractive out-of-focus photography.
Wet Spider Web 2 © Harold Davis
Clearly, the Zeiss prime lenses are very sharp. But one thing that is less obvious that I also love about these lenses is how well they render out-of-focus areas.
As I advise in Achieving Your Potential As a Photographer: A Photographer’s Creative Companion and Workbook, it sometimes enhances a photographic quest to set technical limits. So I decided to only use the maximum aperture on my lens (f/2). Besides photographing wide-open, I planned to use aperture-priority metering, to shoot handheld (as opposed to on a tripod), and to include at least some out-of-focus elements in every frame.
Wet Spider Web © Harold Davis
With these constraints in mind, I started finding spider webs covered in morning dew. Bokeh and out-of-focus or not, the background was important to me. I needed a spider web with a clean background without wires, trash cans, or cars.
Higher and higher up the hills I went, and just as the sun was starting to burn through the fog and evaporate the water drops, I found a delightful web in great light at the crest of the hills that dominate this side of the San Francisco Bay area.
Of course, even with a fixed aperture, and letting the aperture-preferred metering handle the exposures, there were many variables that impacted the bokeh: the focus point I chose, how out-of-focus I threw the image, the directionality of the focus blur, and whether or not I used an extension tube.
Related stories: Natural Jewelry; Within the Web; Web Architecture; Web Solarization; Nature’s Harp. Also check out my book, Photographing Waterdrops.
October 11, 2015
Digital Pop Art
It’s fun sometimes to make the colors really pop, as in this pair of images. The bottom floral, of Gerberas and Crysanthemums, was photographed on a light box. I then inverted the image in LAB to arrive at the upper version, Gerberas and Crysanthemums Inversion. This kind of work is probably better seen and evaluated as digital Pop Art than as photography.
Chrysanthemums and Gerberas Inversion © Harold Davis
Do you prefer more traditional looking work? Check out (for example) these iconic images of mine, or my Kumano Kodo portfolio. Digital photography as a medium is truly a big tent than enables many stylistic possibilities and artistic proclivities. It’s for this reason that I like to say I am a digital artist using photographs as my source material. This is a more complex and more accurate description than the anachronistic label “photographer.”
Chrysanthemums and Gerberas © Harold Davis
Some related stories: Low Geostationary and Decaying Orbits around the Clematis Inversion; Ringing Cedars Covers; Is It Photography?
October 10, 2015
Low Geostationary and Decaying Orbits around the Clematis Inversion
I spent a few days doodling and noodling with flowers, first on the light box for transparency and then with LAB inversions in Photoshop, and Low Geostationary and Decaying Orbits around the Clematis (shown here as an inversion) is one of the images I came up with!
Low Geostationary and Decaying Orbits around the Clematis Inversion © Harold Davis
October 9, 2015
Special Print Offer: Harold Davis Iconic Images
It’s time for holiday giving—or for a great present for yourself! We are offering four prints of my most iconic images. Each print is hand-crafted in my studio using archival inks, hand-signed using acid-free ink by yours truly, and printed on archival Moab Juniper Baryta Rag 305 gsm. Your choice of print is $250 (including shipping within the continental United States). This represents a substantial discount (roughly 75%) compared to our standard retail pricing by way of thanks for buying directly from the artist (that would be me!). The quartet of four Harold Davis prints can be yours (for a nice additional discount) at $795 for all four.
Some details: Click here to learn more about Harold Davis prints. Alone I Stand and Road Less Traveled are printed roughly 11″ X 14″. Camellia and Nautilus on Black are printed roughly 12″ X 12″. More about the images below. Each print is $250 including shipping within the continental United States (contact us for international shipping costs), or $795 for all four including shipping. California residents add sales tax. Place orders no later than December 1, 2015 for Christmas delivery.
About Juniper Baryta Rag: Juniper Baryta Rag 305 by Moab Paper is a 100% cotton, true baryta (barium sulfate) fiber paper that offers the density of a traditional darkroom FB-type paper to hold detail in the deep blacks of the shadow regions, while producing natural white highlights that’s enhanced with a slight fiber glossy surface texture.
This double-weight coated inkjet fine art paper embraces the unique charm of silver halide by using state-of-the-art coating technology to bring a new method to an old tradition. It even smells like old-fashioned darkroom paper and reminds me of the chemical days!
Placing a print order: To place a print order, send us an email or contact us by phone. We accept checks, credit cards (MC and Visa), and Paypal.
About Alone I Stand
A book contract brought me back to Yosemite Valley for several successive winters. Exploring the valley floor following a massive snowstorm, I found this indomitable old tree standing tall against the weather in Leidig Meadow. Mindful of the great artistic and photographic heritage of art depicted Yosemite, as I created this image I kept the heroic paintings of Albert Beirstadt in mind—as Beirstadt’s romantic view of Westward expansion echoed the theme of the ancient but indomitable tree standing tall against the weather.
Alone I Stand © Harold Davis
About Camellia
Photographing this image of an almost perfectly symmetrical Camellia Japonica was a controlled exercise in using a bracketed sequence of photos to build up a low-key image, starting from the darkest image. Technical concerns aside, as an artist my goal was to create a feeling of softness that enhanced and complemented the gradual shade into darkness, bringing out the sensuality of this gorgeous flower.
Camellia Japonica © Harold Davis
About Road Less Traveled
In his famous poem, Robert Frost wrote about two diverging roads, and about taking the one less traveled. The Green Dragon Buddhist Monastery nestles under the bluffs on the north side of the Marin Headlands, California. Departing after a retreat from the Monastery, I looked back at the road and saw two paths, one less traveled. Considering my own life as an artist belonging but apart from the society around me, I realized that my path would always be one that is less traveled. My way would be different, and not for the faint of heart. With these thoughts, I composed my image, and made my photo.
Road Less Traveled © Harold Davis
About Nautilus on Black
This image of a cross-section of a Nautilus shell represents to me the symmetry and order that can be found in the heart of nature, which paradoxically combines order and disorder in a most anarchic but orderly way. In the imperfection of the world lies its perfection, perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in the famous Nautilus spiral.
Nautilus on Black © Harold Davis
October 7, 2015
Free Creative Landscape Photography Webinar Sponsored by Topaz
Please join me for a free Creative Landscape Photography webinar sponsored by Topaz Labs. The webinar is free, but seats are limited, and pre-registration is required. The webinar session is on Tuesday October 20, 2015 at 2PM Pacific Time, and lasts for about one hour, with time for questions and answers. A description follows below the image.
Castelo Marvao © Harold Davis
Webinar Description: Join us for an inspiring session as Harold Davis, well-known photographer, author and workshop leader, shows how he uses Topaz plug-ins to enhance his landscape photography. Harold will cover his workflow from photo to finished art, showing how he uses Topaz Adjust, Simplify and more, both as tools with specific visual goals in mind, as well as a jumping-off place for endless creative opportunities.
Click here to register for the Creative Landscape Photography with Harold Davis webinar.
