Harold Davis's Blog, page 166

Photographing Waves

Waves are a fundamental form of the universe. Light and sound come in waves. Wave formation underlies much that we know, and don’t know, about the universe around us. As manifest in our earth’s ocean, with the forces of gravity, topography and tide made real, they are both orderly and chaotic. Waves have a certain regularity, but no two waves are alike.

Waves, South Beach, Pt Reyes © Harold Davis

I like to photograph waves because they are a fundamental form that underlies what we know as physical reality. A moving wave also gives the photographer the opportunity to exercise the important creative controls inherent in a camera: focus, aperture (depth-of-field), shutter speed (duration of the exposure) and sensitivity (ISO).

Sunset at Point Reyes Head © Harold Davis

Since waves are constantly in motion, what first comes to mind in terms of the camera’s controls is shutter speed. Shutter speed is badly named, because it refers to a duration of time, not a speed: the length of the exposure, in other words how long the photosensitive medium (the sensor) is exposed to light.

A long shutter speed in minutes causes waves to blur and become completely smooth. A very fast shutter speed, measured as a fraction of a second, such as 1/1000 of second, captures an instant of time, and stops the wave in its tracks in all its foaming glory in the moment before it peaks and crashes.

Storm at Sea © Harold Davis

In many ways the most interesting shutter speeds represent an intermediate duration of time:  long enough for the wave to blur so that its underlying shape becomes apparent, but short enough to register some of the details of the wave in its progress to the shore. The length of these shutter speeds depends upon the speed of the wave, but tend to be longer than 1/30 of a second and faster than ten seconds.

Seascape © Harold Davis

The wave images shown here were made on the great beach of Point Reyes, California, walking south from the South Beach parking lot in the late afternoon and at sunset, during a workshop I was giving about Photographing Waves.

My camera was on a tripod: even if the waves are in constant motion your camera doesn’t have to be. Each image is a “confection”: a composite, since I always bracket my exposures and capture every piece of an image that I think I might need. There’s always time enough when I am at my computer to figure out how to put the pieces together!

Waterdrops via Otus 85

I shot this image with my new Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 lens during a break in the rainy weather. To get closer to the waterdrops, I added a 36mm extension tube. The exposure data was 1/15 of a second, f/7.1 and ISO 100, with the camera on a tripod. I like the brightness of the way the lens renders, as well as the sharp detail of the in-focus blade of grass with waterdrops and the attractive bokeh of the out-of-focus areas.

Waterdrops via Otus 85 © Harold Davis

A waterdrop functions like a fisheye lens, and shows an almost 360 degree view of the miniature world around it. If you look closely at the waterdrops in this photo, you’ll see I am reflected while taking the photo along with Otus 85, as well as a street sign. More interestingly, the first waterdrop reflects an image of the next waterdrop in the row; presumably, this is an infinite chain, like looking in a mirror reflecting a mirror, but at a very small size.

Flash Craftsy Sale

Photographing Flowers is the acclaimed online Craftsy course with Harold Davis. Sign up with a special 50% off today for yourself or as a gift!

ALL Craftsy classes (choose from an extensive catalog) for just $19.99 or less now through December 25th, 2014. Click here to take advantage of this special flash sale.

Rainy Day © Harold Davis

Sintra Garden © Harold Davis

Alstromeria Ballet © Harold Davis

Seasons Greetings: Graced with Light!

Best wishes of the season from myself, Phyllis and our whole family!

Click here for a PDF version of this card.

Katie Rose, Photographer

Mommy was very tired. Mommy gets up most days at 5:30 am to get the four kids to school, ferries them to karate, and works hard too. So Mommy went upstairs for a short nap.

Stuffy Study #1 © Katie Rose Davis

Katie Rose, now six years old, knew Mommy needed her nap. When she was a little younger, Katie might have kept her mom from napping so she could play with her. If Katie had been sleepy, too, she would have snuggled in for a nap herself with mommy and her favorite blanket.

Stuffy Study #2 © Katie Rose Davis

But neither of these were the case. Katie Rose had an idea of what to do. Once her mommy had fallen sound asleep, she went and gathered all her stuffed animals (a/k/a “stuffies”) and brought them en masse up to her mom’s bedroom.

Stuffy Study #3 © Katie Rose Davis

Next, she went hunting for her mom’s iPhone. She found it in a side pocket of her mom’s purse. Heading back upstairs with the iPhone, she proceeded to arrange her stuffies in situ for portraiture, and used the iPhone camera to make a series of about 24 photos, ten of which you see here.

Stuffy Study #4 © Katie Rose Davis

No adults intervened, or were even aware of what Katie Rose was doing until after her mom woke up, when Katie Rose showed her the photos on her Mommy’s iPhone.

Stuffy Study #5 © Katie Rose Davis

This is a true story, and Katie Rose’s very first copyright notices. There will be a limited edition of prints (just kidding!).

Stuffy Study #6 © Katie Rose Davis

Stuffy Study #7 © Katie Rose Davis

Stuffy Study #8 © Katie Rose Davis

Stuffy Study #9 © Katie Rose Davis

Stuffy Study #10 © Katie Rose Davis

Ruined Kasbah

According to our guide Abdul, the indigenous construction in Morocco is very environmentally friendly: made of earth and sand, when it is no longer used it gradually decays back to the soil from which it was made. Many structures in fact are crumbling, such as this Kasbah in Ouarzazate, Morocco.

Ruined Kasbah © Harold Davis

After settling into our hotel, and a good meal at a restaurant nearby that included both camel and pigeon, I went exploring for night photography with a friend. Stepping into abandoned ruins, this ancient Kasbah struck stark silhouettes, partly enhanced by ambient light from the town, against a backdrop of the bright stars of the sub-Saharan night. Indeed, it was crumbling back into the earth from which it was made!

Exposure information: Nikon D810, Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 lens, tripod mounted; two combined exposures at f/5.6 and ISO 200, exposure times one minute and 2.5 minutes.

Terraces in Portugal

In the Upper Douro Valley of Portugal the grapes are grown that become the famous port wine that has made Oporto, Portugal’s second city on the banks of the Douro River where it meets the Atlantic, a commercial center since time immemorial. The vines are grown on steep terraces, created over the centuries by hand. This area is a World Heritage Site, and looking at the immensity of the labor involved in this landscape one can surely understand why.

Terraces © Harold Davis

I shot this image handheld across the valley of a river a tributary to the Douro River on a late autumn day with quickly shifting cloud cover. Of course, this is a composition of patterns on a large scale. Abstractly, one could almost be looking at sine waves rather than stone terraces. Look closely, and you can see the staircases used to navigate from one level to the next.

But the eye needs some relief, so when I chose the portion of this vast landscape to render I let a road curve and meander through the frame from left to right, and balanced the road with a bright spot of light coming through the clouds, and coming down from the upper right.

Here’s the color version of the photo:

Terraces, Upper Douro Valley, Portugal © Harold Davis

Kumano Portfolio: A Work in Progress

My Kumano kodo Portfolio is a handmade labor of love and a work in progress. But we’re making great progress! This portfolio is designed to showcase in form and content my photos of the Kumano kodo pilgrimage trail on the Kii peninsula in Japan, sacred to Shugendo Buddhism.

Here are some shots from the first prototype, soon to be renamed AP (artist proof) #1. Incidentally, the portfolio edition consists of 12 signed and numbered portfolios plus four artists proofs. Each portfolio is created by folding a single 4 meter long sheet of Awagami Kozo washi, so there are no fasteners, only folds. See Working on the Kumano kodo prototype for some more info about this unique artist-created artifact. Each portfolio is signed and numbered, with my Japanese chop hand-applied, on the title page.

This photo shows the spread in the center of the portfolio:

Here’s one of the long, long sheets of Kozo coming out of the printer:

A single one of the sheets in a roll before it is scored and folded:

Scoring the sheet of Kozo by hand with the waste paper shown:

Two more spreads from “inside” the portfolio, one in color and one in black & white:

The entire folded sheet of Kozo fits into a kind of outer sleeve with a panoramic print of the view from one of the sacred passes along the Kumano kodo. The sleeve is scored with flaps, and is also signed and numbered. We’re still working on a couple of variations, but this is the cover of one of the sleeves we are considering:

So far, numbers 1-4 of the portfolio are spoken for. Numbers 5 and 6 are on offer for $1,150 each. If you’d like one, we can offer a modest pre-publication discount, as well as thanks for contacting me directly.

Related stories: Working on the Kumano kodo prototype; Print Prices to Rise; Special Print Offer.

Market in Marrakesh

This is an image made after dusk with a long (300mm) lens from above the Jemaa-al-Fna in Marrakesh, Morocco. I used five exposures at shutter speeds from 3/5 of a second to 5 seconds with the camera on my tripod, and combined the exposures using Nik’s HDR Efex Pro plugin in Photoshop and also with hand-layering.

Market in Marrakesh © Harold Davis

Related images: You can get a better idea of my position in making this image from Jemaa-al-Fna and Wider View of the Jemaa-al-Fna.

Panorama from Morocco

This is a thirty-image panorama I shot in Boulmane Dades, an oasis in trans-Atlas Morocco, at sunset. Each image was 36 MP, so the entire panorama made for a very big file indeed. This version is reduced in size so that it can be viewed!



















If the panorama doesn’t start moving automatically, you can move it with your mouse (or a gesture) to see all of it! Stop the motion by clicking in the image area; double-click to open it larger in its own window.