Harold Davis's Blog, page 170
October 12, 2014
Making Memorable Travel Photos Webinar now available
Making Memorable Travel Photos webinar recording (Unlimited access $19.95)
Please consider viewing and learning from this exciting, new webinar offering that will help you learn to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and find the extraordinary when you travel.
Many of us like to travel, and when we travel we bring our cameras. But there’s a strange paradox: no matter how unique and photogenic our destinations, mostly the photos we come back with are pretty dull. Your travel photos do not have to be boring!
In this presentation, noted photographer and digital artist Harold Davis shares his spectacular imagery from many places around the world as well as “abroad at home.” He’ll share the backstories about how many of his images were made, and what was going on at the time of the exposure. Hint: If men in military uniforms come toward you pointing automatic weapons, stop photographing whatever it is that you are photographing, and turn around slowly!
While showing his award-winning imagery, and sharing his travel photography stories, Harold will explain topics including:
The Making Memorable Travel Photos webinar recording covers:
How to research and prepare for any travel destination
Planning tools that Harold uses to maximize his chances of photographic success
Figuring out where the light is coming from to get the best photos
How to be “at home abroad” no matter what your destination
Making travel photos that rise above the mundane
Photographing people when you travel
How to ask a stranger permission to take their photo
Making travel photos with a personal viewpoint
How to get good shots when you are with a group
Want to move your photographic imagery from the mundane to the artistic? Then maybe this webinar—is for you! Learn to find the special at home and abroad in this extraordinary presentation from Harold Davis, one of the living masters of digital photography.
One participant in the live session noted, “Harold’s webinars are always interesting. I learned quite a bit.” Another participant added, “We just finished attending your Memorable Travel Photos webinar, and also attended the Converting to Black and White webinar a week or so ago. My wife and I found both of them to be very educational and inspiring.”
Click here to register for unlimited access to this webinar recording (unlimited access is $19.95).
October 11, 2014
The end of the Berkeley Pier
The Berkeley Municipal Pier stretches almost a half a mile out into San Francisco Bay. Along the way out to the end there are views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, and Mt Tamalpais. The pier used to go even further, so the end is boarded up with the slats you see here, which look decorative in the sunset light. By the way, the view from under the Berkeley Pier is also pretty cool!
End of the Berkeley Pier © Harold Davis
This image was shot on a tripod, and used three blended exposures. I used a Nikon D810 and Zeiss 15mm f/2.8 set to f/22 and ISO 64 (the native ISO for the D810). The shutter speeds were 2.5 seconds, 8 seconds and 25 seconds. Post-production included HDR blending and minor perspective correction.
October 10, 2014
Creative Black & White Masterclass
Saturday March 14 and Sunday March 15, 2015
This workshop includes field photography in several Bay area locations good for black & white, review of participant’s work, monochromatic shooting techniques in the field, photographic assignments, black & white conversion in Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex Pro, and classroom sessions on high-tonal range black & white digital imaging and printmaking.
Click here for registration! *Early registration discount applies until 10/15/2014
In this workshop, Master Photographer Harold Davis guides participants in both aspects of the digital black & white process: shooting and post-processing.
Workshop participants will take advantage of several San Francisco Bay area locations with black and white in mind, with field destinations to be determined depending on weather and group predilections. Possibilities include the Point Richmond, Cable Car Museum, Fort Point, Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate Bridge.
In the classroom, hands-on guidance will explain techniques for extending dynamic range, monochromatic conversion methods, and best practices where the two technologies intersect.
Cayucos Pier © Harod Davis
Harold Davis is the author of Creative Black & White (Wiley) and Monochromatic HDR Photography (Focal Press). His prints have been called “hauntingly beautiful” by Fine Art Printer Magazine. Join Harold and a like-minded group of photographers for this hands-on workshop!
What: Creative Black & White Masterclass with Harold Davis
When: March 14 – March 15, 2015
Where: Berkeley, CA (classroom sessions); we will also carpool to field locations
Tuition and registration: ($695; early-bird special $645 for registration prior to Oct 15, 2014); click www.meetup.com/Harold-Davis/events/207493952/ to register for this workshop.
Workshop size: Minimum 4 and Maximum 12 participants
Nautilus in Black and White © Harold Davis
In addition, the workshop will provide extensive coverage of the creative vision required to successfully create digital black and white images as well as the workflow necessary to make art prints from this specialized image-making technique.
Kira at Passy Station © Harold Davis
About Harold Davis
Harold Davis is an internationally-known digital artist and award-winning professional photographer. He is the author of many photography books including The Way of the Digital Photographer ( Peachpit), Monochromatic HDR Photography (Focal Press) and Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley Publishing).
In addition to his activity as a bestselling book author, Harold Davis is a Moab Master printmaker and a Zeiss Lens Ambassador. Harold Davis’s work is widely collected, licensed by art publishers, and has appeared in numerous magazines and other publications. His black and white prints are described as “hauntingly beautiful” [Fine Art Printer Magazine] and his floral prints have been called “ethereal,” with “a purity and translucence that borders on spiritual” [Popular Photography].
Harold Davis leads popular technique and destination photography workshops to many locations including Paris, France; Heidelberg, Germany; and the ancient Bristlecone Pines of the eastern Sierra Nevada.
You can learn more about Harold and his work on his website, www.photoblog2.com .
October 9, 2014
I never know which me
This is an in-camera multiple exposure, consisting of ten individual exposures combined in the camera. I used a Nikon D810 mounted on a tripod with a Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 lens. The background was black seamless paper, and two studio strobes triggered by wireless were used for lighting.
I never know which me © Harold Davis
Related image: Quo Vadis. For the entire cycle of images see Multiple Exposures.
Credits—Model: Dasha, Studio: The Lighthouse Berkeley.
October 8, 2014
Night Photography in San Francisco Workshop Feb 20-22, 2015
Please take $50 off the normal tuition for this workshop if you register before October 15, 2014!
In a letter to his brother Theo, the great artist Vincent van Gogh wrote, “It often seems to me that the night is much more alive and richly colored than the day.” The advent of digital photography has revolutionized the practice of night photography because a digital sensor can record the spectacular colors of the night. These colors are created by light waves in spectrums that are invisible to the naked human eye. For the first time we can truly “see” the world of the night around us.
Night covers the globe half the time and—surprising to many—photographic opportunities with digital equipment are as exciting at night as they are during the day. Join night photographer Harold Davis, the author of Creative Night: Digital Photo Tips & Techniques, a book explaining night photography techniques and 100 Views of the Golden Gate, a book celebrating the visual glories of San Francisco’s iconic structure, as we explore the freedom of the night in the glorious surroundings of San Francisco.
What: Night Photography in San Francisco with Harold Davis
When: Feb 20-22, 2015
Where: Berkeley, CA (classroom sessions); field locations around the San Francisco Bay area
Tuition and registration: ($695; early-bird special $645 for registration prior to Oct 15, 2014); click www.meetup.com/Harold-Davis/events/207470572/ to register for this workshop.
Workshop size: Minimum 4 and Maximum 12 participants
Field locations: Depend on conditions and group inclinations, may include Berkeley Pier, Oakland Waterfront Park, Mare Island, Marin Headlands, Golden Gate Bridge, Kirby Cover, Lombard Street curves, San Francisco waterfront and Bay Bridge
Full Moon Rising © Harold Davis
On Friday, Harold will cover techniques, equipment, and night safety issues during an orientation session before moving outdoors to create images of the night. In the morning we’ll regroup to demystify post-processing of night time captures in Photoshop and evaluate our work in the context of personal goals.
A second night shoot on Saturday gives participants the opportunity to put into practice their newly acquired skills.
Time permitting, we will take advantage of the wonderful locations available to also shoot some daylight landscapes!
Classroom sessions will provide critiques of participant work, and demonstrate night photographic post-production Photoshop techniques including multi-RAW processing, stacking, layering, and LAB enhancements.
Field locations depend upon conditions, but will likely include the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands, the curves on Lombard Street, Berkeley Municipal Pier and downtown San Francisco. Conditions permitting, we may be able to take advantage of the early-setting new moon the weekend of Feb 21-22 to also practice capturing star trails.
Please take $50 off the normal tuition for this workshop if you register before October 15, 2014!
San Francisco Moonrise © Harold Davis
We will learn to make beautiful night landscapes together, and enjoy the spectacular San Francisco scenery from a unique perspective. You’ll leave the workshop with great images and the skills to capture the world of the night while others sleep.
Please take $50 off the normal tuition for this workshop if you register before October 15, 2014!
Lombard Street Curves © Harold Davis
About Harold Davis
Harold Davis is an internationally-known digital artist and award-winning professional photographer. He is the author of many photography books including The Way of the Digital Photographer ( Peachpit), Monochromatic HDR Photography (Focal Press) and Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley Publishing).
In addition to his activity as a bestselling book author, Harold Davis is a Moab Master printmaker and a Zeiss Lens Ambassador. Harold Davis’s work is widely collected, licensed by art publishers, and has appeared in numerous magazines and other publications. His black and white prints are described as “hauntingly beautiful” [Fine Art Printer Magazine] and his floral prints have been called “ethereal,” with “a purity and translucence that borders on spiritual” [Popular Photography].
Harold Davis leads popular technique and destination photography workshops to many locations including Paris, France; Heidelberg, Germany; and the ancient Bristlecone Pines of the eastern Sierra Nevada.
You can learn more about Harold and his work on his website, www.photoblog2.com .
October 7, 2014
We Happy Flower Few
A great Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop was held this past weekend, with we happy flower few photographing roses, irises, lilies, tulips and more on several large light boxes. One memorable moment: the facility caretaker managed to burn something in the microwave setting off the fire alarm. He couldn’t turn off the alarm, and before we knew it fire fighters in full regalia were marching past the light boxes and flowers. Fortunately, the workshop participants took it all in stride!
I regard the image of a leaf below as a kind of “doodle.” It was part of an in-class demo of using backgrounds and working creatively with LAB color .
Lab Leaf 2 © Harold Davis
We also did more conventional light box work, for example this entire vase full of tulips on a white background. Everyone took their turn shooting the tulips and other flowers, and a great time was had!
Tulips on White © Harold Davis
October 3, 2014
Ghosts in the Enchanted Garden
On May Day, a national holiday in France, the fountains were going full force in the Parc de Sceaux. Of course, on a holiday weekend, the park was full of people, who showed up as “ghosts” in this bracketed exposure sequence, combined using HDR. I removed most of the ghosts in post-production, but if you look closely you’ll see I left a few ghosts to wander in this enchanted garden.
Ghosts in the Enchanted Garden © Harold Davis
Another technical point: my usual recommendation is to bracket shutter speed by one EV increments, keeping the other settings in the exposure triangle constant. But in this case I essentially created two bracketed sequences at differing ISOs and apertures, one sequence intended to provide long exposures and a smooth effect on the water in the fountains, the other intended to capture the water as it sprayed crisply.
Both sequences were then combined into one image. I used a 70mm focal length on a tripod. The three fast-shutter-speed exposures were at ISO 320 and f/8, and ranged from 1/80 of a second to 1/500 of a second in duration. The four slow-shutter-speed exposures were at ISO 50 and F/32, and ranged from 1.3 seconds to 1/6 of a second.
The point of this process was to show both silky slow-motion water along with crisp spray from the fountains.
Ghosts in the Enchanted Garden (Black & White) © Harold Davis
Of course, there is something decidedly old-fashioned about this kind of view, almost like a digital version of Eugene Atget in his photography of parks and gardens such as those at Versailles. So I decided to make this appeal explicit in the monochromatic version shown here. You can still see the ghosts if you look closely, but they are wandering around in black and white.
Learn more about my techniques for monochrome in this webinar recording: Converting to Black & White with Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex and also please consider my Black & White Weekend Workshop in March, 2015.
October 2, 2014
Quo Vadis
This is ten in-camera multiple exposures, with the camera and tripod mounted on a ladder looking down at the model on a black background. I asked the model to think about being photographing from above, and to be careful about the perimeters of the area the camera captured.
Quo Vadis © Harold Davis
This is an issue of collaborative, synchronized and choreographed photography, as the model and I both need to keep track of the photos, and make sure that each one of the exposures going into the multiple exposures going into the in-camera multiple exposure is interestingly and attractively posed and positioned.
Related image: Dance of the Seven Veils.
Credits—Model: Dasha, Studio: The Lighthouse Berkeley.
September 30, 2014
Sea-Girt Villages of Italy Photography Adventure with Harold Davis in October 2015
If you enjoy photography and travel, please consider joining me in October of 2015 for a photographic adventure to Italy. Click here for the complete Prospectus and Itinerary.
This once in a lifetime trip focuses on some particularly photogenic areas of Italy, and gives us time to get to know these special places so we can come home with incredibly unique imagery. We will photograph and get to know some very special places including Cinque Terre, Naples, the island of Capri, and Positano and the Amalfi Coast.
These are wonderful and special areas with their own charms. They embody the Italian culture and the picturesque nature of sea-girt villages clinging to the sides of mountains facing the ocean. The pacing of this trip allows us time to explore and photograph. We will focus on four major locations, viewing them in depth. Our small group size will allow me to give you individual attention as you photograph.
I believe that where one stays is extremely important in travel photography. The hotels on this journey (4-star where available) have been personally hand-selected for quality, location, and photogenic charm.
The pacing of this over-two-week trip allows for variety, but we won’t be moving every night. That way, we can really get to know lovely areas such as Cinque Terre on the Ligurian Sea, and Positano on the Amalfi coast. The Photographic Adventure starts in Florence and ends in Naples, so those folks with additional time can add optional excursions to other Italian destinations either before or after this trip.
I’ve worked hard to keep the price reasonable on this trip. It is $6,495 for two full weeks (single supplement additional), with hotels, many extras, and (of course) photography!
You can view the complete itinerary by clicking here. Here are the five villages of Cinque Terre:
Corniglia, Cinque Terre, courtesy Hotel Stena
Manarola, Cinque Terre, courtesy Hotel Stena
Monteroso, Cinque Terre, courtesy Hotel Stena
Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre, courtesy Hotel Stena
Vernazza, Cinque Terre, courtesy Hotel Stena
Dates: Sunday October 18, 2015 (leave United States October 17) – November 1, 2015 (15 days and 14 nights).
Group size: Minimum of ten and maximum of twenty.
Cost: $6,495.00 per person (excluding airfare, single supplement $925.00 additional). Includes all accommodations, many meals, transportation and extras per the Itinerary and Inclusions. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis, and requires a $500 deposit and an application form.
Trip Prospectus and detailed Itinerary: www.digitalfieldguide.com/italy
Registration instructions:
www.digitalfieldguide.com/italy-registering
Registration form:
www.digitalfieldguide.com/pdf/Italy-res.pdf
Thank you very much for your consideration. I look forward to photographing with you in Italy.
Harold Davis
Stairway to Heaven
On a rainy spring day I was photographing under the bridges in Paris, trying to keep my camera dry. The bridge shown in this image is the Pont Solferino, a pedestrian bridge over the Seine. My position is with the Tuilleries at my back, looking across the river at the Musee D’Orsay on the left.
Pont Solferino (Black & White) © Harold Davis
The image shown here in black and white (above) and color (below) is composed from a bracketed sequence of five shots at exposures from 6 seconds to 1/60 of a second. I used my 15mm f/2.8 Zeiss lens, with a little post-production work to correct the perspective distortion. The HDR blending caused the people climbing the stairs to “ghost”—an effect that adds to what one person viewing my images has called a “stairway to heaven.”
Pont Solferino © Harold Davis
Want to learn more about how I convert to black and white? The recording of my webinar Converting to Black & White with Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex is now available for unlimited access ($19.95).
