Harold Davis's Blog, page 185

Photographer as Poet

When people learn that I am a professional photographer, it is not unusual for them to ask me next what kind of photographer I am. The answer is trickier than it might seem. According to Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer, there is no such thing anymore as a professional photographer (because everyone has a DSLR). If you are primarily a wedding photographer you have a specialty (although it is less lucrative than it used to be). It’s possible to specialize in landscape and nature photography, but not too many photographers make a good living from it.

Peonies (with inken) on washi © Harold Davis

But what about me?

I like to say that I am a “Photographer as Poet.” I photograph what I am interested in, and I figure out a way to market my work after I’ve made it. “What I am interested in” could mean just about anything or anyone. Photography is just the first step in my image making.

My images are more like poems than short stories—they have an internal cadence and structure.

I feel strongly enough about this “Photographer as Poet” thing that I’ve had a Japanese inken made for me (it’s a stamp, like a Chinese chop) that says “Photographer as Poet.” Here it is:

My inken is used as a decorative element and signature on some of the prints that I make.

Which brings me back to what I do. One of my collectors put it this way (and I think it rings true): I am an artist using techniques including digital painting, with digital photos my as my raw material (pun intended). The results usually don’t look like traditional photography. I like to use new technologies to refer to art of the past, and to mix-and-match genres. One example is the botanical image of peonies above, printed on a high-end inkjet printer on Awagami washi.

This could almost be traditional art, but it is not quite, of course. Nor is it so self-referential as to be coy. I want my poems to be enjoyable on their own, without any comprehension of the complex traditions that relate to their making, and without any need to notice the genres I’ve mixed and the conventions I’ve bent or broken in the process of creation and composition.

Related story: Rose after Delauney and O’Keeffe.

Awagami Video with Botanique

I’m really pleased to note a new professionally-made video from Awagami about photographers who print on Awagami washi that shows my Botanique. The video can be played below, embedded from Facebook. The video is in Japanese with English translation in subtitles. Botanique is shown in the video at about the 50 second mark. 

Post by Awagami Factory.

Rose after Delauney and O’Keeffe

At a recent lunch with my brother he reminded me how we both benefited from a classical education in the arts when we were young. I may not have got much of this stuff via formal education, but I sure was exposed to every layer of visual art history as a child thanks to my parents. Mostly, by seeing the stuff in person—from the paintings on the walls of the Caves of Lascaux to the museums with the “moderns” and everything in between.

To quote the dearly beloved and recently deceased Pete Seeger on the difference between education and experience, “Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”

I’m not sure how this fits with being dragged through every museum imaginable as a wayward kid—probably more in the experience category—but even as a bored child it was hard not to fall hard for the impressionists at first encounter.

Rose after Delauney and O’Keeffe © Harold Davis

Anyhow, this wasn’t what I had in mind when I went to work on the photo of the pale rose (far below), but I do know enough to recognize the palette and patterns of the great geometric painter Sonia Delauney along with the sensuousness of a Georgia O’Keeffe floral—when they pop out at me in an image I’ve created.

You’ll note that the original image is rotated 90 degrees. The other effects come from a series of LAB adjustments—inversions and equalizations—applied using a variety of blending modes.

Within each rose © Harold Davis

For a couple of other examples of this kind of thing, check out Mandalas from a Glass Bowl, Broken Arrow and Creating LAB Patterns, and also see my article on Photo.net, Using LAB Color Adjustments.

Meanwhile, I must report that there is a certain goodwill towards the world that comes about from consorting with one’s fraternal sibling when both brothers are “of a certain age” with receding hairlines and cares and children of their own, and fondly reminiscing about some of the unique aspects of our culturally rich—and radically eclectic (or maybe eclectically radical)—upbringing.

Where in the world is Harold Davis?

Anybody else remember Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? My kids sure don’t! Their world of computer gaming is deeply involved with Minecraft. Anyway, where in the world is Harold Davis? Right now, abroad at home, but for me this year is “back-end loaded” with travel, and I wanted to give you a heads-up.

First, the upcoming Black & White workshop I am giving in San Francisco the weekend of April 12-13 is my last scheduled workshop in San Francisco in 2014. This will be a small workshop oriented at field photography, and (as noted) I do have a few places left. Click here for more information and registration.

Cable Car Wheels © Harold Davis

From mid-April through mid-May I will be in France, leading a photography workshop in Paris, and then exploring some rural parts of southern France on my own with my camera.

In June I’ll be presenting my prints at Photo Oakland in a free event, then leaving for Germany towards the end of the month. I’ll be giving two workshops at the Heidelberg Summer School of Photography. Although I expect most of the participants to be German photographers, I’ll be giving the workshops in English, and there are a few places still open. My workshops in Heidelberg are in flower photography and black & white. My sponsor, Zeiss Camera Lenses, will be loaning lenses for workshop participants to try!

Back in the States in mid-July, I’ll head pretty much straight away for Denver, where I’ll be making another online course with Craftsy. By the way, you can use this link for a $10 discount on my first Craftsy course, Photographing Flowers.

Chateau des Nazelles © Harold Davis

In August, I’ll be back in coastal California, with two weekend workshops in very cool locations: a Night Photography workshop in Big Sur August 1-3, and Creative Landscape Photography on Point Reyes August 8-10. There are some spaces available in each of these workshops.

I am planning to be back in Japan in October. One of the purposes of this trip is to scout locations for my Japan Photographic Odyssey, now tentatively scheduled for April 5-25, 2015. I will bring a very small group of photographers to explore some of the less-known areas of Japan. Stand by for details!

At the end of October I’ll be in New York for PhotoPlus Expo. I’ll head back to Europe in time to co-lead the Photographic Caravan to Spain and Morocco for most of November. By the way, if this interests you, we are taking waiting list applications (and it is not unusual to have one or two drop-outs due to personal reasons).

In December, I have the fifth annual winter Waves Photography workshop on Point Reyes scheduled for Saturday, December 13. Whether there are almost no waves (like last year) or massive surf in a storm (three years ago), this is always great fun! Please save the date, and check the Point Reyes Field Seminars website for registration availability.

Bixby Bridge by Starlight © Harold Davis

They say travel broadens, and often this is true. You can learn much about what you have by seeing “the other.” I also find that travel also shows me what I care most about at home, and I am more able to be truly present when I am home knowing I will be soon adventuring again with my camera. I hope that you may be able to join me one of these days on one of my photographic adventures—and if you have a particular destination that you’d like to see me lead a workshop to, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

 

Into the vortex of the universe © Harold Davis

Flowers for the vernal equinox

To celebrate the spring equinox yesterday, here are some Tulips and Anemones shot on my light box for translucency (a white ranunculus peeks through on the upper left as well!). You can recognize some of these specimens in Kaleidoscope of Flowers. As you can see, I am enjoying our California spring!

Tulips and Anemones © Harold Davis

Exposure data: Nikon D800, Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO Sonnar, 2 seconds at f/16 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.

Curated—A Different Version of Harold Davis

Danielle Wohl, an art consultant based in Palo Alto, California, has curated a different version of my work on her website. These are not the translucent florals on washi or high-tonal-range black & white prints I am used to collectors choosing. Danielle has selected imagery that verges on the abstract and depicts things like architectural details in Japan, a pattern on an old garden fence, and a stack of old dishes. Check out the Harold Davis page on the Danielle Wohl Art Advisory website.

Here are a couple of the images Danielle selected and the stories behind them:

Apartment Stairs in Shin-Imamiya © Harold Davis

With Apartment Stairs in Shin-Imamiya, I was traveling via a series of local trains in central Japan on my way between the monastery guesthouse in Mt Koyo and hiking the Kumano kodo. I changed trains at the Shin-Imamiya Station on the outskirts of Osaka, and there was a wait of an hour or so before my connecting train arrived. I decided to explore a little. You can’t tell from this shot of the patterned apartment stairs, but the area is surprisingly funky, with homeless people on the street right in front of the train station—not the neat and tidy Japan that tourists are supposed to see.

Plates © Harold Davis

We had wrapped shooting my Craftsy Photographing Flowers course in Denver, and the crew and I were out for a celebratory lunch. I spotted this stack of plates in the restaurant, and shot and processed it on my iPhone on the spot! I suppose that I have “hungry eyes”—and that looking at interesting things is as necessary to me as food or drink.

The feeling is mutual: my Otus lens

I’ve posted a new informal review of my Zeiss Otus 1.4/55 on Photo.net. My conclusion: “If you can afford it, and if you can work with manual focus (which is often, in fact, my preference), then this lens will yield incomparable results when paired with a high resolution full frame sensor.” Click here to read the full review.

Otus & me—selfie via iPhone 5 camera app

Here’s another recent image shot of a rose in black and white, made with my Otus:

Within each rose © Harold Davis

Kaleidoscope of Flowers

Spring has come, and I know it’s true because I have anemones and ranunculae to add to my tulips on my light box for back lighting. Fun to create a composition that seems almost like a kaleidoscope image—but the colors are made of flowers!

Kaleidoscope of Flowers © Harold Davis

Exposure information: Shot on a light box with a Nikon D800 and Zeiss Otus 55/1.4. Seven combined exposures, each exposure at f/11 and ISO 100, with exposure times between 1/60 of a second and 2 seconds. Camera tripod mounted; Harold ladder mounted. Exposures combined and processed in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), Photoshop, Nik HDR Efex Pro, Nik Color Efex Pro, Topaz Adjust and Topaz Simplify.

Related image: Tulips in a Crowd.

Metamorphosis

The assignment I gave out on the second day of the Achieving Your Potential as a Digital Photographer workshop was to make a photo of something so that it looks like something else. In other words, change something to something new. In other words, metamorphosis.

Bathtub Landscape via IPhone © Harold Davis

My response to my own challenge: this abstract image I think of as a landscape with a highway and a canal, shot using my iPhone facing a bathtub at Urban Ore, and processed on the spot on the iPhone using the Plastic Bullet app.

I think the workshop was a great success. There will be ongoing follow-up sessions using webinar technology to make sure that action plans actually get implemented! I am very hopeful that metamorphosis will apply in the most positive way possible to the wonderful participants in this workshop, as well as to the imagery we made.

Craneway Pavilion

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce,” wrote Karl Marx. In that spirit, the photo shows the floor and windows of what is now called the Craneway Pavilion. It’s used today for weddings, rock concerts, and trade show exhibits. Its most important historical use was to make military hardware during the second World War.

Ford Richmond Plant © Harold Davis

The Craneway Pavilion is located in Port Richmond, California, and is the largest space in the old Ford Richmond Plant—incorporated into the ponderously named Rosie the Riveter / WWII Home Front National Historical Park. Back in World War II, this space—designed by famed industrial architect Alfred Kahn—was where the military hardware that won the war in the Pacific was built, with more than 100,000 jeeps and tanks coming out of the Richmond Tank Depot (as it was known then).

Information about the image: Nikon D800, 28-300mm lens at 42mm, circular polarizer, eight exposures, each exposure at f/25 and ISO 100, shutter speeds ranging from 1/20 of a second to 20 seconds, tripod mounted; processed in Nik HDR Efex Pro, Adobe Camera RAW, Photoshop, Nik Color Efex Pro, Topaz Ajust and Topaz Simplify.