Harold Davis's Blog, page 54
March 21, 2020
Out of Chicago LIVE! Online Global Photography Conference April 24-26, 2020
NEW EVENT! Please consider joining me at the Out of Chicago LIVE! Online Global Photography Conference taking place April 24-26, 2020.
Can’t make it to a live photography event? This may be the next best thing, or maybe even better! #weareinthistogether
For more information and registration, visit www.outofchicago.com/live.
Without leaving home, immerse yourself in photography inspiration and learning with three days of live presentations and 100+ interactive sessions, including panel discussions, tutorials, individual photo
challenges and group image reviews. Learn online face to face from over 60 world-class professional photographers that love to teach.
Highlights include:
Instructor guided learning, online over 3 days LIVE!
150+ presentations and interactive sessions on a wide range of topics
and photography fields including landscape, nature, travel, street,
architecture, post-processing and more.
Thousands of dollars in prizes.
Access to presentations and recordings will be available after the
conference.
For more information, visit www.outofchicago.com/live.
March 19, 2020
Abstract Expressionism and Photography
American photographer Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) used his camera to create essentially abstract expressionist imagery. In Siskind’s photography, the abstract composition of shapes integrated through effective uses of positive and negative shapes are the point of the imagery, rather than a rendering of the subject matter. For example, in one of my favorite Siskind images, Martha’s Vineyard 108, a silhouetted stack of rocks over an inner space can be visually read as either a shape in black (actually the rocks), or a shape in white (the sky and passage through the rocks).
Shadow on a Hill © Harold Davis
When I saw my Shadow on a Hill (shown above) in the filmstrip mode of Adobe Bridge, I recognized that the camera is looking down a vast hillside (to get a sense of the scale, check out the shrub on the upper right in the sunshine). The entire image seemed a piece of abstract expressionism, more about formalism and positive versus negative space than about a specific subject.
March 17, 2020
Towards a Ham Sandwich Theory of Art
In his cryptic and chaotic first novel V, Thomas Pynchon describes the work of a painter named Slab:
Slab and Esther, uncomfortable with each other, stood in front of an easel in his place, looking at cheese Danish No. 35. The cheese danish was a recent obsession of Slab’s. He had taken, some time ago, to painting in a frenzy these morning-pastries in every conceivable style, light, and setting. The room was already littered with Cubist, Fauve and Surrealist cheese Danishes. “Monet spent his declining years at his home in Giverny, painting the water lilies in the garden pool,” reasoned Slab, “He painted all kinds of water lilies. He like water lilies. These are my declining years. I like cheese Danishes.”
Essentially, as Slab indicates, what does the subject matter matter? It’s all just grist for the artistic mill. Water lilies or cheese danish, what is the difference?
This bears some relationship to the current “ham sandwich” theory of politics, as in: “I’ll vote for a ham sandwich if it is the Democratic nominee.” To which, by the way, I subscribe.
Food metaphors are great!
My images of folds in the earth (below) from Death Valley’s Zabriskie point are a kind of ham sandwich, cheese danish, or water lily. I could go on photographing this kind of abstraction forever, regardless of scale, and its great that these textures add up to a magnificent and vast landscape.
Related stories: Death Valley Landscapes; Lost in the Hills.
Zabriskie View © Harold Davis
Badlands © Harold Davis
Earth © Harold Davis
March 14, 2020
Flower Power
Flower Power. It’s hip to be square—as in the floral carpet image (below). Making space for conversations with flowers (middle image on white, bottom image an LAB L-channel inversion on black) is an important part of my life. Kind of like meditation with my petaled friends (most are from our garden).
Flowers Squared © Harold Davis
Speaking with Flowers © Harold Davis
Speaking with Flowers (on Black) © Harold Davis
March 11, 2020
What’s my line?
Sometimes an image is simply about a point, or a line. In this high-key image across the Bay on an overcast day, I created an image of a train bridge that is really about two close, parallel lines horizontally bisecting the rectangular frame.
Opening Train Bridge © Harold Davis
The image of power-line towers (below) is the same idea, but a little more complex in composition, and vertically oriented. (Sometimes simplicity works better than complexity!)
Power Lines © Harold Davis
March 5, 2020
Spring Forest
This time of year there are so many wonderful flowers to photograph on my light box. Our rooms are filled with their wondrous beauty, and when I make compositions on my light box I can forget about whatever else is going on in the world at large, to celebrate nature’s largess that is now in front of my lens.
Spring Forest © Harold Davis
March 3, 2020
Lost in the Hills
It’s easily possible to get lost in the folds of the earth viewed from Zabriskie Point: visually with a camera, and practically as well if one wanders in the valleys. The “social trail”—an informal path created by erosion due to foot traffic, and generally deprecated by the National Park Service—shown in Lost in the Hills helps add a sense of scale to the scene.
Without a human-size reference point, the landscape can become abstract and context-less: it could be big, it could be small (if rotated, the couch shown in this story could be an immense landscape after all, among other things), and who really knows for sure?
Lost in the Hills © Harold Davis
March 1, 2020
Canyonlands
Here are a few images from my recent trip to Canyonlands National Park. Canyonlands is divided in three sections by the conjunction of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The central section, nearest to Moab and easiest to get to, is sometimes called Island in the Sky. The southeastern section is the Needles, and the southwestern section contains the Maze.
On this trip, we were based in Moab, Utah and able to visit the Island in the Sky (central) and Needles (southeast) sections of the park. On a previous trip, years ago, I spent time exploring the Maze (southwest) section, which is little harder to get into than the other two areas.
I certainly hope to get back and spend some more time in the Canyonlands backcountry; all three sections of this wonderful and remote park are absolutely brilliant.
Related images: View through Tower Arch; View from Deadhorse Point.
Tree with a View © Harold Davis (Needles section, Canyonlands)
Snow on the Plateau © Harold Davis (Island in the Sky)
Beneath the Rim © Harold Davis (Deadhorse Point)
Winter on the Mesa © Harold Davis (Island in the Sky)
February 28, 2020
Death Valley Landscapes
There are few more beautiful landscapes on this good earth than Death Valley. Here are a few images from my recent visit, with the photographs emphasizing patterns and folds in the vastness of this very special place.
Folds in the Earth © Harold Davis
How deep is my valley © Harold Davis
Big Old Rock at Sunrise © Harold Davis
February 26, 2020
Chicago Botanic Garden Photography Conference Discount Code
I’ve recently returned from a photography conference in Yosemite Valley organized by the Out of Chicago gang. This was an incredible life experience! These guys (and gals) know how to organize things, and present a smorgasbord of photographic offerings at their conferences that is rich beyond belief.
Whatever level of photographer you are, if you like flowers and gardens as much as I do, there is something for you at their Botanic conference. So it makes me very happy that there is a discount code I can offer you (see below), but you must take advantage of the discount soon (by March 10). I look forward to photographing with you at the Chicago Botanic Garden in August!
Into the Vortex of the Universe © Harold Davis
I am pleased to announce that I will be teaching at the Out of Chicago Botanic Garden Photography Conference in Deerfield, Ilinois near Chicago, August 23–27th, 2020. Field sessions will be at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Use the special discount code DAVIS at checkout for a $250 discount for registration until March 10, 2020.
If you care about flower photography as much as I do, this one will be great!
Out of Chicago Botanic Garden will bring together passionate flower and garden photography enthusiasts with world-class photographers all in a great location, where you can learn and shoot side-by-side with working professional photographers who appreciate flower and garden photography.
Highlights include:
• Stay in Deerfield, Illinois and photograph the Chicago Botanic Garden for 5-days.
• Daily, in-the-field, hands-on, small group teaching excursions.
• There will be classes, group critiques and post-processing help.
Don’t miss this one! Reserve by Tuesday, March 10, 2020 and save $250 by using my special discount code at checkout, DAVIS.
Visit www.outofchicago.com/chicagobotanic for registration and more information about the Out of Chicago Botanic Garden Photography Conference.
