Harold Davis's Blog, page 153
July 13, 2015
Framed: Flowers of Spring’s Desire
I printed my Flowers of Spring’s Desires on Moab’s elegant Juniper Baryta Rag for a friend and collector. She framed it in white, with a pink inner mat. Very nice effect.
Framed – Flower of Spring’s Desire by Harold Davis
July 12, 2015
White Dahlia
Every time I am away for an extended trip Phyllis seems to embark on a home improvement project. This time, while I was in the Czech Republic and giving my workshop in Heidelberg, she outdid herself with a great reconfiguration of the living room. Outside, she put a small cast iron table on our front porch for breakfast and the like surrounded by pots of flowers. In one of the pots she planted a white dahlia.
Dahlia #2 © Harold Davis
I photographed one of the nearly perfect white dahlias on my light box using the Zeiss 50mm f/2 macro lens, which is truly one of the best macro lenses in my kit (and I have many macro lenses, my joke is that had I been Imelda Marcos I would have collected macro lenses rather than shoes!).
In the version above, I used an LAB inversion of the L-channel to show the white flower on a black background. The version below is more like how the flower would normally look on a white background in a monochromatic rendition.
Now, the only question is what will Phyllis improve while I am in Maine the first half of August?
Dahlia #1 © Harold Davis
July 10, 2015
Bend in the Neckar River
On a great bend in the Neckar River, about 15 kilometers up-river from Heidelberg, Germany lies the town of Neckarsteinach. Four dramatic castles sit atop the crags overlooking the Neckar. Julian, one of my workshop participants, brought me here the day I was flying home, and together we explored the area.
Bend in the Neckar River © Harold Davis
From the top tower in the castle I shot a series of seven hand-held bracketed HDR exposures. Each exposure sequence had eight images. I used Photoshop to merge the seven sequences into a single panorama, which (doing the math) consists of 56 individual images! Since each capture was using a 36MP sensor, quite a bit of information has gone into this pano, and I am looking forward to printing it large.
Bend in the Neckar River in Black and White © Harold Davis
Related story: Check out the panorama I photographed overlooking a bend in the Dordogne River in southwest France.
July 9, 2015
Along the old Rhine River
After my workshop was over, Volker (who assisted me at the workshop, and is quite a gifted person in his own right) took me exploring in the Rhine Valley. Volker told me that the Rhine has been navigated for thousands of years, since Roman times, and the channels have been straightened and broadened. The river used the meander much more with wetlands. These banks of the old Rhine have been preserved as park lands in places, and it is here we went with our cameras!
Path beside the Rhine © Harold Davis
Old Rhine River © Harold Davis
July 7, 2015
Engine at Primo’s Garage
This is a photo of an engine-in-progress at Primo’s Garage, photographed during my recent Black and White Masterclass in Heidelberg, Germany, and used as in-class post-processing example.
Engine at Primo’s Garage © Harold Davis
July 6, 2015
House of Mirrors, Prague
On top of Petrinske Sady (Petrin Hill) in Prague, Czech Republic is a tower built to replicate the Eiffel Tower at 1/5 scale. From the top of the tower, it is one of the best views of Prague, and apparently the place in Prague to take a romantic date for a kiss. Next to the foot of the Petrin Tower is a maze and House of Mirrors.
Hall of Mirrors, Prague © Harold Davis
Within the House of Mirrors, a technical problem for photography is the low light, since tripods are not permitted (flash is also obviously impractical, even if it were allowed). I resolved this issue by boosting my ISO to 2,000, with the intention of processing the image to make the resulting somewhat noisy aspect of the photo an attractive part of the final look. In other words, this was never intended to be a highly sleek image, but rather one with a bit of grunge in its DNA.
Rather more trying of my patience, the Hall of Mirrors was full of people on a rainy Sunday, and the mirrors picked-up all the kids and families running through the maze, and replicated them over and over again even when I thought they were out of sight, and magnified their presence.
I found a location and position within the mirror maze in which I wasn’t reflected (more difficult than you might think!) and then lurked. It took a while as I waited for a split instant in which no people were apparent in the system of mirrors, but finally it happened. I was ready, and quickly made the exposure before another reflected person came into the frame.
Exposure data: Nikon D810, 28-300mm lens at 32mm, 1/40 of a second at f/4.5 and ISO 2,000; handheld using Vibration Reduction.
July 5, 2015
Black and White Masterclass in Heidelberg
These are the wonderful participants in my Black and White Masterclass in Heidelberg, Germany. We all survived the record high temperatures, photographed in Heidelberg, and made and processed high dynamic range monochromatic images with a wide variety of styles and subject matter. Special thanks to Michael Verhoelen of LifeFoto, who represents Moab Paper in Germany, who brought his printer and a van load of special Moab papers (some of the prints he made from the work of the participants are shown here)!
Black & White Masterclass with Harold Davis © Harold Davis
July 4, 2015
Still Life with Silver Bowl
Sometimes the beautiful things are all around us, like this group of fruit in a reflective bowl. This version was processed on my iPhone with Plastic Bullet, Lo-Mob, and Snapseed:
Still Life in Silver Bowl © Harold Davis
This version of my image was made using the Waterlogue app:
Still Life and Watercolor © Harold Davis
July 3, 2015
Oh, Heidelberg!
The other evening I strolled along Heidelberg’s Philosopher’s Walk with my camera and tripod. I stopped to make several photographs, including this exposure blend looking down on the Alte Brucke. Today I used the image in my Black & White Masterclass to demonstrate a fairly complete high dynamic range black and white (“monochromatic HDR”) workflow. I think the class was great at following along as this workflow involves a non-trivial effort and is definitely not for the faint of heart!
Oh, Heidelberg! © Harold Davis
Exposure information: 135mm, seven combined exposures (at shutter speeds between 1/160 of a second and 0.5 of a second), each exposure at f/9 and ISO 64, tripod mounted; exposures combined and processed using Nik HDR Pro, Adobe Camera RAW, Photoshop, Nik Color Efex, Nik Silver Efex, Topaz Adjust, Topaz Simplify, and Perfect B&W.
July 2, 2015
Incredibly Attractive Highly Repellant
Of course, this leads to a grammatical question: Is the implied subject female or fabric? Methinks it could be either, or maybe both.
Incredibly Attractive Highly Repellant © Harold Davis
