Harold Davis's Blog, page 18
December 11, 2022
Fusion X-Rays
These two flower images are fusion X-Rays: one part medical X-Ray combined with one part light box photo. I created them last month in collaboration with my friend Dr Julian Kopke, radiologist and photographer extraordinaire. Some more info about the fusion process can be found in this story.
Check out the X-Ray category on my blog, and my portfolio of X-Ray images.
Calla Lilly Fusion X-Ray © Harold Davis
Rose Bouquet – Fusion X-Ray © Harold Davis
December 5, 2022
2022 PSA Progress Award
The Photographic Society of America (PSA) gives their Progress Award annually to recognize “a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the progress of photography or an allied subject. The recipient does not have to be a member of the Society.”
I’m proud and grateful to be the 2022 recipient of this award, specifically cited for “the development of a high key digital HDR workflow and set of techniques involving specific kinds of back lighting that make it possible to create luminous translucent imagery.”
Given annually since 1948, previous recipients of the Progress Award include Walt Disney, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Eliot Porter, Robert N. Noyce, John & Thomas Knoll, and Ken Burns. I’m excited to be part of this august company (as you can see in the iPhone photo below, snapped by Nicholas Davis)—and look forward to moving creatively onward from here!
December 1, 2022
November 25, 2022
Mirror Selfie
I took advantage of the mirrors in my dressing room in the hotel in Trieste to create a “recursive” image along the lines of the Droste effect (immediately below). This kind of image making has its own chapter in my book Composition & Photography.
Mirror Selfie © Harold Davis
Perhaps what brought the Droste effect to mind was an M.C.Escher exhibit I had just seen in Florence. In one fun, interactive feature, I was encouraged to snap an iPhone shot of myself (instead of Escher) in his famous lithograph of a reflective ball (below).
At the Escher Exhibit © Harold Davis
November 24, 2022
The Second Creepiest Hotel Room on My Visit to Italy
Well, the “first creepiest” room was definitely the one in Orvieto that had a large reproduction of a painting of Death playing chess with his dying victim hung right over the bed. I hung a bedspread over this grotesque art so I wouldn’t see Death peering at me at night from the mirror across the room.
Storm, Trieste © Harold Davis
This room in Trieste is also creepy, more for what is outside the room than the room itself. The room is over-large, tasteless, and grandiose—but on the whole these are venal not mortal sins, and could even be fun, depending on whom one might be sharing the room with.
But I am on the fifth floor (sixth by American reckoning), and it is a long way down to Trieste’s harbor. In the storm the other night, this magnificent old building groaned and rattled. The balconies out the doors provide only a low railing, almost no protection. While potentially dangerous to the lonely and suggestible traveler, this eyrie also provides an enticing perch for photography.
November 23, 2022
Sailing Yacht A
Sailing Yacht A (“Sy A”) is a super yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch that was seized by Italian authorities in Trieste harbor in March, 2022. Sy A remains anchored off Trieste; in the image below it is shown in yesterday’s storm, and in the bottom image today in better weather.
Ghost Ship © Harold Davis
Sailing Yacht A © Harold Davis
November 22, 2022
Florence Rainbow
A few days ago, my friend Julian and I walked up to the Michelangelo Piazza for a view above Florence. We were welcomed with a display of sun, clouds, rain—and a rainbow.
Some other rainbows: Strasbourg’s Petite France, Paris, Patriarch Grove, Prague, and the Alabama Hills (in the eastern Sierra).
Rainbows always symbolize hope and beauty for me. I feel fortunate to have witnessed so many rainbows—photography is a great enabler of this.
I keep in mind the Ansel Adams dictum that if you don’t go out in the rain you’ll never witness the clearing storm. The same can be said of rainbows.
Rainbow over Florence © Harold Davis
November 18, 2022
Duomo in the Clearing Fog
The day dawned with a white-out fog blanketing the Umbrian hill town of Orvieto. I wandered through the maze of ancient, deserted streets and alleys with my camera on the tripod, making images in the evocative light. Rounding a corner onto the Piazza del Duomo, I saw for the first time the sun rising through the fog (my image is below).
Duomo in the Morning Fog © Harold Davis
Later in the morning, Julian and I climbed the many steps to the top of the Torre del Moro. We had this eyrie to ourselves in a world of whiteness, but decided to have patience, and settled in to wait. Over an hour later, after noon, the fog started to break, and when it moved, it moved quickly. I had only a moment or two to capture Duomo in the Clearing Fog (below).
Duomo in the Clearing Fog © Harold Davis
November 16, 2022
St Patrick’s Well
St Patrick’s Well, or Pozzo di San Patrizio, is located in Orvieto, Umbria, Italy. There are 248 steps down (and up). The view in my image is looking up at the daylight at the top of the well. The whole thing is like a tower that goes down into the ground, rather than standing above it. The design uses a double spiral stair, with 70 windows from the stair into the shaft of the well. The point of this double spiral was to allow mules to go down and fill vessels and come back up the second spiral without any traffic jams. I sure felt like a mule going down and then up this structure with my friend Julian!
St Patrick’s Well © Harold Davis
St Patrick’s Well was built on orders from Pope Clement VII who had taken refuge at Orvieto during the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The Pope wanted to make sure there would be enough water in event of a siege.
The rather odd name for the well was inspired by St Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland. This is a cave supposedly shown St Patrick by Christ that is said to go down all the way to purgatory (and, yes, climbing out of the well with my camera gear did indeed feel purgatorial!).
From a photographic viewpoint, I am interested in the feeling of light in my image, considering how dark it was down there at the bottom of the well (I had to use my headlamp to see what I was doing with the camera).
November 6, 2022
Dahlia X-Ray
This image is a pretty straightforward x-ray of a rather small Dahlia blossom. Julian and I made the exposure last week at his radiology practice near Heidelberg. In post-production, I converted to LAB color. Next, I used a series of curve adjustments to equalize the various densities in the image. Long live the Dahlia!
Dahlia X-Ray © Harold Davis
