Harold Davis's Blog, page 47
August 19, 2020
Shell Collection
Sometimes it is really fun to line up a whole collection of objects in a grid on my light box, not worrying too much about fancy compositional issues. Take, for example, my collection of shells!
Shell Collection © Harold Davis
August 17, 2020
Dried Blossoms
I arranged these dried blossoms on my light box in a pattern with an eye towards complementary colors. The background blue blossoms are Nemesias. interlaced with almost-orange-yellow Gaillardia petals, and thin crimson fringes from a flowering Monarda supplying an accent.
Dried Blossoms © Harold Davis
August 13, 2020
[Coming Up Soon] Intimate Flowers on Saturday August 15, 2020
What: Intimate Flowers with Harold Davis
When: Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 11am PT. Duration between one and two hours, including Q&A
Where: On your computer or mobile device from anywhere via Zoom. Zoom authenticated registration and a tuition payment of $29.95 are required for enrollment. Seating is limited. The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_agS00EhOT2SQnTGXSldpiQ
Details: August is here! We have flowers! Let’s forget about the world at large and make some intimate joy with intimate landscapes and colors of the flowers of summer!
This webinar heads to the patio for flower techniques outside, then heads back in for ideas and inspiration for photographing flowers close-up and in bouquets. Harold shares his secrets for flower arrangements and for making intimate close-ups of flowers using materials that are at hand. Harold will explain technical concepts in floral close-up photography, and show how he lights his intimate floral portraits.
After several photographic setups, Harold will continue with ideas about how to process and post-produce photographs to create stunning botanical art with your camera.
There will be ample time for Q&A.
Tuition: The tuition for this webinar is $29.95, and requires prior registration. Seating (on a first come, first served basis) is limited. You must register via Zoom to be enrolled in this webinar! The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_agS00EhOT2SQnTGXSldpiQ
A lightly-edited recording of this Webinar will be posted following a time delay on the Harold Davis Photography YouTube channel.
Wabi-Sabi Mandala © Harold Davis
About Harold Davis: Harold Davis is a bestselling author of many books, including Creative Garden Photography from Rocky Nook, Photographing Flowers, and Photographing Waterdrops (both published by Focal Press). He is the developer of a unique technique for photographing flowers for transparency, a Moab Master, and a Zeiss Ambassador. He is an internationally known photographer and a sought-after workshop leader. His website is www.digitalfieldguide.com.
Kiss from a Rose © Harold Davis
Phyllis and I are very excited to announce our series of Saturday webinars! We hope to see you there.
Intimate Flowers on Saturday, August 15, 2020: August is here! We have flowers! Let’s forget about the world at large and make some intimate joy with intimate landscapes and colors of the flowers of summer! Read more…Click here to register for this webinar.
Intimate Iris © Harold Davis
Webinar Noir on Saturday September 19, 2020: Noir evokes black and white films of the 1940s with “dames”, private eyes in fedoras, low-key lighting, and harsh shadows. More generally, a sense of “noir” has come to mean a range of stylish black and white techniques. Read more…Click here to register for this webinar.
Chorus of One © Harold Davis
Photography and Writing | Using Your Words to Become a Better Photographer on Saturday, October 3, 2020: Writing has always had an important role in relationship to my photography. Not only have I “used my words” to introduce and explain images and techniques, but writing has also helped me to tease out the meaning in my own work, and to understand and explore what I need to do next with my art. Read more…Click here to register for this webinar.
Circumflex © Harold Davis
Patterns, Abstractions, and Composition on Saturday October 17, 2020: In a very real sense, creating a photograph is an act of intentional design. The photograph presents a transformation of the subject so that it fits within a specific frame. Meticulous use of patterns, and understanding the boundary conditions where patterns begin and end, is crucial to this act of design. Read more…Click here to register for this webinar.
Patterns in Glass 3 © Harold Davis
Finding the Mysterious in Photography on Saturday October 24, 2020: As nights grow longer and days shorter, and as we approach Halloween and All Saints’ Eve, separations between our world and that of the spirits gets thinner. Some of the very best photographs send a frisson of the spooky and the ineffable up our spine. Read more…Click here to register for this webinar.
World on Fire © Harold Davis
August 12, 2020
Dahlia Solos
My Dahlia bed is starting to bloom, providing some very sweet subjects for solo flower portraits!
Brookside-Snowball Dahlia © Harold Davis
Dahlia ‘Southern Belle’ © Harold Davis
Dahlia ‘Flip-Flop’ © Harold Davis
August 10, 2020
Visiting a Garden of Cars
International Car Forest of the Last Church © Harold Davis
A while back, in the pre-pandemic era, I visited the International Car Forest of the Last Church. This so-called “Car Forest” is more like a car garden than a forest. Mostly wrecked, almost all painted, and largely “planted” front-end down in the desert earth, this installation is located near Goldfield, Nevada.
The county seat of Esmeralda County, Goldfield is a near-ghost-town and home to a few hundred people. Besides the International Car Forest of the Last Church, Goldfield also boasts the meanest bartender in Nevada. This observation is not based on my personal experience (never having encountered any bartenders in Nevada, mean or otherwise), but rather on the words of a sign near the Goldfield town center, shown in a photo below.
I regret to say that I missed checking out the meanest bartender in Nevada. If chance, fate, and a vaccine ever get me to the Goldfield area again I will not miss the opportunity a second time.
For some of my photography of more conventional gardens, please check out my new book Creative Garden Photography.
Nevada’s Meanest Bartender © Harold Davis
Roadside near Goldfield, Nevada © Harold Davis
Wheelee © Harold Davis
Installation in a Goldfield Parking Lot © Harold Davis
Bart Simpson Doll © Harold Davis
Pile-On © Harold Davis
School Bus © Harold Davis
August 9, 2020
Layers and the Landscape
In some ways, layers define the landscape at large. When a landscape consists of layers stretching out to the distant horizon, the details become abstracted, and we can imagine ourselves lost in the perspective of the infinite.
Landscape of Blue Layers © Harold Davis
I was reminded of my quest for the layered landscape with a recent print purchase inquiry regarding my Landscape of Blue Layers, shown above. I made this image on a road trip in the autumn of 2017 from above Westgard Pass, in the White Mountains on the California-Nevada border.
2017 was, I think, the first year of the really bad autumnal fires in California, leading to smoke and haze throughout the eastern Sierra. I used this otherwise horrible condition to create the atmospheric Poem of the Road, and later in the same trip several other layered landscapes, Down in the Valley and Red Dragon Sunset. Both images are shown below. Also on this trip, there was some cool night photography (and a broken lens), but that is a different story.
Down in the Valley © Harold Davis
Red Dragon Sunset © Harold Davis
Looking at my Landscape of Blue Layers as a possible print, I began to wonder what other images there might be in my unprocessed files from this trip. I pulled up the autumn of 2017 on my production computer pretty easily. My search was for layered landscape images, of which three are shown below. As you can see, this was a pretty productive trip.
Blue Distance 1 © Harold Davis
Purple Haze © Harold Davis
Blue Distance 2 © Harold Davis
So layers in a landscape photo are not layers in Photoshop. These images are created in the camera, and I did very little to them in post-production besides cleaning up a few flaws and heightening contrast a bit. The trick to photographing layers in the landscape is mostly being in the right place, at the right time, with one’s camera already on the tripod.
August 6, 2020
Coming soon to a computer near you: Intimate Flowers
We’re please to kick-off our Saturday webinar series on Saturday August 15, 2020 with Intimate Flowers!
What: Intimate Flowers with Harold Davis
When: Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 11am PT. Duration between one and two hours, including Q&A
Where: On your computer or mobile device from anywhere via Zoom. Zoom authenticated registration and a tuition payment of $29.95 are required for enrollment. Seating is limited. The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_agS00EhOT2SQnTGXSldpiQ
Details: August is here! We have flowers! Let’s forget about the world at large and make some intimate joy with intimate landscapes and colors of the flowers of summer!
This webinar heads to the patio for flower techniques outside, then heads back in for ideas and inspiration for photographing flowers close-up and in bouquets. Harold shares his secrets for flower arrangements and for making intimate close-ups of flowers using materials that are at hand. Harold will explain technical concepts in floral close-up photography, and show how he lights his intimate floral portraits.
After several photographic setups, Harold will continue with ideas about how to process and post-produce photographs to create stunning botanical art with your camera.
There will be ample time for Q&A.
Tuition: The tuition for this webinar is $29.95, and requires prior registration. Seating (on a first come, first served basis) is limited. You must register via Zoom to be enrolled in this webinar! The registration link is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_agS00EhOT2SQnTGXSldpiQ
A lightly-edited recording of this Webinar will be posted following a time delay on the Harold Davis Photography YouTube channel.
Intimate Iris © Harold Davis
About Harold Davis: Harold Davis is a bestselling author of many books, including Creative Garden Photography from Rocky Nook, Photographing Flowers, and Photographing Waterdrops (both published by Focal Press). He is the developer of a unique technique for photographing flowers for transparency, a Moab Master, and a Zeiss Ambassador. He is an internationally known photographer and a sought-after workshop leader. His website is www.digitalfieldguide.com.
Kiss from a Rose © Harold Davis
August 5, 2020
Wabi-Sabi Mandala
Wabi-Sabi Mandala was constructed—mostly—using the blossoms from Flowers from our Pandemic Garden, with the addition of some time passing. “Wabi-sabi” is the rendition of a Japanese concept (侘寂) indicating the beauty of imperfection, impermanence, time passing, and decay—particularly in the context of nature.
I have been thinking about creating an online course in visual mandala construction. This class would be small, and meet over a period of time with analysis, exercises and assignments, discussions, and critiques. All details are still TBD, but if this might interest you (no obligation of course) please drop us a line. In the meantime, current webinar listings can be found here.
Wabi-Sabi Mandala © Harold Davis
August 3, 2020
Flowers from Our Pandemic Garden
It was great fun yesterday to construct and photograph this light box composition. The dahlias are the first from my new dahlia raised bed on the southwest side of the house, which is beginning to produce numerous flowers. I think the next crop of dahlias will be white!
Flowers from our Pandemic Garden © Harold Davis
Exposure data: Nikon D850, Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4, eight exposures at shutter speeds ranging from 6.0 seconds to 1/13 of a second, each exposure at f/16 and ISO 64, tripod mounted; exposures combined in Photoshop and adding to a scanned paper background.
August 1, 2020
Nature versus Vision
Nature versus nurture, er, nature versus vision?
I love being in, and photographing, nature and the wilderness. But on the whole, I subscribe to the philosophy of artist, solographer, and photographer Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890) who wrote “I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions.”
Agreed. Even when the visions are of nature. Indeed, if everything comes from nature then Man Ray’s statement is tautologically true. There is no such thing as an artistic depiction of nature, such as a photograph, without a vision of what the image is to be, to convey, and to portray.
Calling Alice © Harold Davis
End of Days © Harold Davis
Related: My “Impossible” album on Flickr; upcoming Finding the Mysterious in Photography webinar, scheduled for October 24, 2020 in time for Halloween.
Trouble with Tracks © Harold Davis
