Harold Davis's Blog, page 56
January 20, 2020
New in Workshops. New In Books. New in Art.
The early-bird registration for Photograph Tokyo (Oct 24 – Nov 1, 2020) ends soon (Jan 31). Please consider joining us for a fabulous destination photography workshop. Click here for workshop information, and here for the Reservation Form. Please let us know right away if you’d like to come!
There’s still space in this year’s Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop (June 20-21, 2020). Click here for information and registration (or contact us for manual registration).
Photographing the Great Gardens of Maine (August 16-21, 2020) will be great this year, with Oldie-but-Goldie gardens and new horizons as well. Now open for registration. Click here for information and registration.
Please consider joining us in Paris (Spring 2021) for a boutique photography workshop with a great small group of folks. Click here for information, and here for the Reservation Form. I’ll look forward to photographing Paris with you!
Flowers with Dances and Delights © Harold Davis
New in Books
My new book Creative Garden Photography is due out from Rocky Nook towards the end of the summer 2020 and is now available for pre-order. The book features garden photography from around the world, some of my best flower images and how they were made, and techniques for use in the field (the garden), close-up, and botanicals in the studio (light box, on black, etc). Phyllis and I are working hard on writing and designing this book, and we think it will be very beautiful (as well as practical and useful).
Creative Garden Photography will be available from the publisher, Rocky Nook, on Amazon, and “wherever fine books are sold.”
New in Art
We are offering for a limited time your choice of one these four photographs by Harold Davis of Claude Monet’s legendary Garden at Giverny, France at a very special price. They are Giverny Afternoon, Flowers at Giverny, Giverny (Bridge), and Red Tulip, Giverny. The images are shown below.
Each print is on 13″ X 17″ paper (the image size is a slightly less than the paper size), hand printed in my studio on wonderful Moab Juniper Baryta extra premium photographic paper, and personally signed by me.
Your print of choice is $295, approximately a 75% discount from our normal retail price for a print of this size of $1,200. $30 shipping within the US (please inquire for international shipping). Sales tax also applies.
Click here to read more!
Flowers at Giverny © Harold Davis
January 19, 2020
Guest Blog: Beliefs and Answers, Holger Mischke
Holger Mischke is a photographer/writer/musician who works mainly in black and white and combines his images with stories, describing the world around us filtered through the world inside him. You can see more of his work on his website holgermischke.com and follow his writing on his blog holgermischke.blog.
Photo Credit: Jörg Wüstkamp
To live a life I think you need to believe in something, need to find some answers. Without those beliefs and answers, there is no sense of direction, which will make it hard to find it in yourself to make an effort, since you don’t even know whether the next step is getting you closer to where you want to be or further away.
The answers can be found everywhere. Sometimes you already heard them and didn’t recognize them. Sometimes you knew them all along. It’s just that the right questions were never asked.
When I read Ansel Adams’ 1965 article about Edward Weston, one sentence struck home with me: “You might discover through Edward Weston’s work how basically good you are or might become.” The questions I asked myself after reading this and pondering it for a while made me realize something I knew all along. About who I was. And about my work as a photographer.
When They Come © Holger Mischke
It is no coincidence that most people will tell you when asked where they go to wind down, relax, find peace, recharge, that they’ll find all that in nature. I believe that we all feel that way in nature is because we are basically going home. It’s where we belong, it’s where we came from and will go back to. And it’s what we feel disconnected from when we’re back in the everyday “real” world.
X Marks The Spot © Holger Mischke
I am often asked why there are rarely any people in my photographs. I think they are always there. When I take pictures of forests, mountains, the sky, the sea, a sunset, then you can find yourself in there. You, and all the rest of us. I believe that everything in nature is connected and even in this day and age when he have managed to be so out of touch with nature if we are willing to be open, we can find ourselves there again.
Big Sky © Holger Mischke
So when I show you Marram grass in the wind under a stormy sky along the coast, it is you. When I show you fir trees aching under the weight of the snow, it is me. And when I show you the moon reflecting in the ocean stretching out to the horizon, it is all of us and all you will ever need to know. Because at this point the questions will start forming inside you and point you to what we knew all along. And what will help you discover how good you are or might become.
A Wind Is Rising © Holger Mischke
“I know now wherever I go, the path will show itself with every step I take. I’ll never be lost.” This is my idea for The Path (France, 2018).
The Path © Holger Mischke
January 18, 2020
Special Print Offer: A Quartet of Giverny Prints by Harold Davis
We are offering for a limited time your choice of one these four photographs by Harold Davis of Claude Monet’s legendary Garden at Giverny, France at a very special price. They are Giverny Afternoon, Flowers at Giverny, Giverny (Bridge), and Red Tulip, Giverny. The images are shown below.
Each print is on 13″ X 17″ paper (the image size is a slightly less than the paper size), hand printed in my studio on wonderful Moab Juniper Baryta extra premium photographic paper, and personally signed by me.
Your print of choice is $295, approximately a 75% discount from our normal retail price for a print of this size of $1,200. $30 shipping within the US (please inquire for international shipping). Sales tax also applies.
We accept personal checks, credit cards, Paypal, and cash.
All four prints are available for $995 including domestic shipping. This is an additional discount that exceeds 25% off the already discounted individual print price.
Please note that this is a limited time offer; we reserve the right to terminate it at any point. Click here to learn more about my handmade prints.
Giverny Afternoon © Harold Davis
Flowers at Giverny © Harold Davis
Giverny (Bridge) © Harold Davis
Red Tulip at Giverny © Harold Davis
January 17, 2020
Harold Davis featured on See.me
These images use both cutting edge photographic techniques, digital painting adapted from my background as a painter, and software post-production to create images that are unique and uniquely different. I want viewers to experience the fabric of reality a little differently after they have viewed my images. What is real, and what is not? The answer is not so apparent, and we are only as good as our fantasies.
Harold Davis featured on See.Me.
Curled Epiphany © Harold Davis
January 16, 2020
Under the Dumbarton Bridge
For reasons I won’t go into at this time, I find myself these days often driving south to Palo Alto on the peninsula. It’s about an hour from my home in Berkeley with no traffic, and hell-on-wheels when there is traffic. One of the routes I use crosses San Francisco Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge.
Dumbarton Bridge © Harold Davis
There’s something about photographing under bridges that floats my boat. Perhaps it is that salty, sensual melody from “Under the Boardwalk” rattling around in my neurons, and I’ve mistaken a bridge for a boardwalk. In any case, check out Under the Yaquina Bay Bridge and Bridge of Light for examples.
So I was pleased to learn that the underside of the Dumbarton Bridge is pretty cool. The image above is a quick photo from the eastern end, where I plan to photograph again when I have more time. You can click here for a view of the underneath of the western side.
January 14, 2020
New Book: Creative Garden Photography to be published this summer
My new book Creative Garden Photography is due out from Rocky Nook towards the end of the summer 2020. The book features garden photography from around the world, some of my best flower images and how they were made, and techniques for use in the field (the garden), close-up, and botanicals in the studio (light box, on black, etc). Phyllis and I are working hard on writing and designing this book, and we think it will be very beautiful (as well as practical and useful).
Here are two versions of a light box composition that I just made!
Light Box Study – Untitled © Harold Davis
Light Box Study – Inversion © Harold Davis
January 13, 2020
Spring in California
It’s mid-January, and that means springtime in Berkeley. Witness two iPhone photographs: the soles of Phyllis’s gardening shoes with dirt contrasting to the treads, and the gate to a neighbor’s lush garden. I am really excited this year as we have many Papavers to plant, small-sized and straight from the nursery. Hopefully, they’ll be in bloom when I get back from the Camino de Santiago towards the end of May, and voilà! My models will await me.
Garden Gate © Harold Davis
Planting Shoes © Harold Davis
Here are our front stairs from last year with plantings:
Home © Harold Davis
January 12, 2020
Orange Rose
Starting the new year right, I took my time with a bouquet of orange and white roses, first photographing a white rose close up for differential focus. Next, I made several different views of the orange roses, horizontal (top), an “O’Keeffe like” view (middle), and a side angle of the petals (bottom). What a fun way to spend some time with my camera and some pretty flowers!
Orange Rose © Harold Davis
Orange Rose 2 (after O’Keeffe) © Harold Davis
Orange Rose 3 © Harold Davis
January 7, 2020
White Rose
When I saw this white rose, I wanted to contrast the spiral center with its clear delineations and the softness of the outer petals. I used a Lensbaby 85mm Velvet, and made two exposures, with my Nikon D850 on a tripod. The exposure for the center was stopped down at f/16, and for the outer petals wide open at f/1.8. I combined the two exposures using a layer, layer mask, and the Brush Tool in Photoshop.
White Rose © Harold Davis
January 4, 2020
First Flowers of the Decade
Altar of Roses © Harold Davis
First and foremost, we enjoyed the pale orange and white roses with the coming of the New Year. Next, I photographed petals close-up (these are still to come as I haven’t processed them yet). Finally, I photographed some of the flowers using one of my light boxes (this resulting image is shown above).
The world, as poet William Blake put it, can be found in a grain of sand, or a water drop. It can also be found in a human body, or a single flower. I could spend my life working with one blossom. Ultimately, there is so much in the world to see and photograph that getting bored—or being boring—makes no sense to me.
Click here for my best of 2019.
