Harold Davis's Blog, page 37

The Black and White Still Life Webinar

I’m looking forward to The Black and White Still Life Part II, a webinar we’ll be presenting on Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 11am PT.

This presentation will particularly emphasize tabletop and other kinds of still life that can easily be accomplished in anyone’s home with things you already have. Shadows, lighting, and monochromatic composition will be explained and considered. A number of post-production effects will be demonstrated with complete examples.

There will be an opportunity for presenting and reviewing participant work.

Click here to register for The Black and White Still Life Part II, and here for more information.

Parfait Mandala 1 © Harold Davis

Please keep in mind the upcoming Night Photography Panel Webinar on Saturday April 3, 2021 (benefits the Alameda County Food Bank) and One Flower, One Garden, One World on Saturday May 15, 2021.

Please click here for our scheduled webinars and events.

Bridges Call to Me

I like photographing bridges. Put a different way, bridges call to me. I like walking across bridges, and examining their under-structures.

And not just bridges with grand vistas, because a great deal of my visual concern is in fact structural. By definition, most bridges are functional—they transport from one place to another, usually across something. When the structure of the bridge is beautiful as well as useful, it is an excellent example of form following function.

Here is a quintet of bridges from around the world.

Lower Deck © Harold Davis

The Ponte Rodo-Ferroviária de Valença crosses the  River Minho from Tui in Galicia, Spain to Valenca in Portugal. The lower deck of the bridge is shown in this image. Click here for more about this bridge.

Long Bien Bridge © Harold Davis

Built on a cantilevered structure designed in the studio of Gustav Eiffel, Long Bien Bridge crosses the Red River from Hanoi, Vietnam on the main train line to the port of Haiphong. Strategically important, Long Bien Bridge was bombed numerous times during the American-Vietnamese war, but (as you can see) survived all attempts to cut this vital supply link. Long Bien Bridge is a bit rusted, but that would be normal in Vietnam’s humid climate.

Old Train Bridge © Harold Davis

This old train bridge, crossing the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine seemed mostly abandoned—or at least so I hoped as I set up my tripod for the sequence of exposures needed to make this image!

Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge © Harold Davis

The Yaquina Bay Bridge is an Art Deco structure south of Newport, Oregon. The bridge opened in 1936, and is notable for its graceful series of descending arches, as well as the Gothic architectural flourishes.

Rainbow Bridge © Harold Davis

The Rainbow Bridge spans the lower harbor in Tokyo, Japan, and connects two of the sprawling districts of the Tokyo metroplis, Shibaura and the Odaiba waterfront development in the Minato district. 

After walking across the Rainbow Bridge in 2015, I wrote that in this image my idea was to use “selective focus to contrast the curves in the Rainbow Bridge with the linear spaces of the buildings beyond.”

Well, these are but a small taste of the bridges I have walked under and across, otherwise explored, and certainly photographed. I hope you enjoyed this story, and maybe someday will join me in bridge-walking and bridge photographing!

Blackberry showing seeds

Washing berries for breakfast, I was struck by the way some of the seeds in the blackberry appeared. Unlike most of the blackberry, or indeed most blackberries one eats, the clump of seeds in the upper left of this photo have not pollinated, and are clearly shown for the “naked” seeds they are.

Blackberry showing seeds © Harold Davis

I have been asked a couple of times about my posting a photo that is so different from the styles that I am “known for.” 

The simple answer is that I thought the seeds in this berry looked interesting.

A more complicated answer is that I have been known for photographing close-ups (I go through phases), I get bored easily and don’t like being “pigeon holed,” and photography is a medium with a wide range of looks, styles, and applications, from fashion to journalism to botanical art and beyond. Why be self-limiting (when the world will do this for one quickly enough)?

Rooftops of Paris Redux

The appeal of a 2016 Rooftops of Paris image—besides the wonderful patterns of chimneys, dormer windows, and Mansard roofs—is an intentional, and vaguely anachronistic, antique look. In contrast, the 2018 Rooftops of Paris shown below, is a post-film digital high-dynamic range (HDR) image that is very modern in its aesthetic intentions. 

This was a tricky image to make from a garret window high on the Montmartre Hill, and time-consuming to process as well (see below). This perhaps explains why I only got around to processing the RAW files (the digital analog to developing and printing) just now.

Rooftops of Paris © Harold Davis

The captures for this image were made from a small window, with my tripod awkwardly perched to take advantage of the setting sun receding behind a cloud bank. There were seven exposures, with each exposure using a 28mm moderate wide-angle focal-length lens at f/22 and ISO 64 on my Nikon D850. Exposure times varied from 1.3 seconds (lightest, for the foreground) to 1/80 of a second (darkest, for the sun burst). I used a combination of automated HDR, manual RAW processing, and layers and masking to create the final image.

For another recently processed view of Paris as landscape, click here.

My hope is to get back to Paris as soon as possible for more photography. For that, of course, we need vaccinations to beat the virus—and we need to stay thoughtful and vigilant.

Pandemic Print Pricing Ends May 1, 2021

Our special pandemic print pricing ends May 1, 2021. Please place orders for “Pandemic Prints” (at the special price) by May 1, 2021! Thank you for your support during these turbulent times.

Red Tulips © Harold Davis

Tis Bottles

Tis Bottles © Harold Davis

Wayback Machine

Today we will journey to a labyrinth and church on the island of Gozo in the Malta archipelago, followed by the Île de la Cité along the banks of the Seine in Paris early in the morning of an autumn day. Both were photographed pre-pandemic in November, 2018, and first processed just now.

Maze and Church, Gozo © Harold Davis

Île de la Cité © Harold Davis

From the Files

California Live Oak © Harold Davis

Here are two images from my files. California Live Oak (above) is from 2019, photographed in Walnut Creek, California. 

Arcade, Trapani (below) is from November, 2018, photographed in Trapani, a seaport on the western coast of Sicily, Italy.

Arcade, Trapani © Harold Davis

Peonies mon amour

This is a version of my Peonies mon amour image with a little space added above the upper flower at the request of the art director at a licensing client.

Peonies mon amour © Harold Davis

Painting of Coney Island Beach

This is a detail of an oil painting of Coney Island Beach by my grandfather Harry Davis, circa 1940. Clearly, no masks are being worn. Will we ever crowd together in the same way again? What will the new post-pandemic life look like?