Harold Davis's Blog, page 61

Gaillardia-gami

Gaillardia-gami © Harold Davis

Carefully, I constructed this image. I composed it from two LAB color adjustments of a close-up photo of a Gaillardia flower (common name “blanket flower”). The finished composition was intended to resemble something you might see folded out of paper, with the idea of virtual origami. Hence the suffix: Gaillardia-gami.

Of course, if you look carefully, these folds would not actually be possible in “real life” (at least without a tear in the paper).

Play it again mit feeling

Sound of the Sea © Harold Davis

Click here to view Sound of the Sea larger.

These two composite images in pano format involve repetition of the same image in different guises: flipped back-to-back, flipped vertically, with LAB L-channel inversions, and more. The hope is to do this repetition, as the old saw would have it, musically, and with feeling.

Use of a single image, varied in this fashion, allows for the build up of pattern, echoes, and minor-key echoes of the major themes in the imagery.

Click here to view Petal Pano larger.

Petal Pano © Harold Davis

Dawn Chorus Unbound

Dawn Chorus Unbound © Harold Davis

Today I am thinking about a quote from Philip Pullman that I read in a recent interview with the author in The New Yorker Magazine: “Reason is a good servant but a bad master.”

Without tools of construction—and reason—it is hard to build an image like Dawn Chorus Unbound. But with too much reasoning in advance, one loses the Beginner’s Mind advantage: a sense of play, and being open to creative serendipity. 

In art, as in life, I try to keep a balance between analytic rigor and flexible thinking. One needs both modes, truly one does.

Out of Yosemite’s Winter Landscape Photography Conference

Photo credit: © Michael Frye

I am pleased to announce that I will be teaching at the Out of Yosemite Winter Landscape Photography Conference in the heart of Yosemite National Park, February 5–9, 2020.

Out of Yosemite will bring together a community of passionate photography enthusiasts. This means I will be teaching along with some of my favorite landscape photographers, including Michael Frye, William Neill, and John Sexton.

Please consider joining me for this unique opportunity.

Highlights of the conference include:

Staying in the heart of Yosemite National Park at Yosemite Valley Lodge.
Daily, in-the-field, hands-on, small group teaching excursions.
There will be classes, group critiques and post-processing help.

Space is very limited. To make sure you have a space, please register right away. To save $250, reserve by Monday, October 7, 2019 and use the discount code DAVIS.

For more information about the Out of Yosemite Winter Landscape Photography Conference, visit www.outofchicago.com/Yosemite.

Yosemite Dreams © Harold Davis

Beginner’s Mind

Rollback © Harold Davis

Shoshin is a word from Zen Buddhism that is often translated as “beginner’s mind.” Beginner’s Mind means having an attitude of openness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject or working as an artist, even when working at an advanced level, just as a beginner would in the best case analysis with a capable and flexible guide.

In the context of my own practice, and the way I teach students to approach their own art and photography, I take Beginner’s Mind to mean to approach my art with humbleness, playfulness, and experimentation—and to be prepared to happily fail.

I am now engaged in playing with a new body of work that involves my photography of flowers for transparency, LAB inversions, photography of pure light though colored liquid in glass bottles, and post-production. 

Over on my Instagram Feed, I was asked about the image shown at the top of this story: “I love this and I am so confused. Please explain how?”

That’s okay, I’m confused too about how I got here, and where this ride is going to take me next.

I didn’t want to be rude, but I didn’t want to explain the technical side of this work yet (if I ever am ready to do so). I replied, “Thanks for your interest! This is a new set of techniques I have started playing with, and I am not ready to share the ‘how’ yet. In the meantime, enjoy the magic….xxxooo.”

So, yes, please enjoy the magic.

Related story: Tacked to a Virtual Wall.

Scrolling Around © Harold Davis

Climbing the Columns © Harold Davis

Tacked to a Virtual Wall

Curled Epiphany © Harold Davis

Starting with a light box image of flowers arranged vertically (shown below), I created an L-channel LAB inversion, as well as a variant using the Exclusion Blending Mode. I curled the Exclusion Blending Mode version to the verso of the virtual inversion, and added the curled combination to a background “wall.”

To add a trompe l’oeil effect and some verisimilitude, I photographed a thumb tack on black in three positions (every corner but the curl), and added the tacks to hold the virtually double-sided flower composition on the virtual wall.

Flowers Are © Harold Davis

Farewell to After-Hours Access at Giverny

Giverny Afternoon © Harold Davis

Sadly, the Monet gardens at Giverny have ended their program allowing artists, photographers, and writers to access the gardens before and after the public admission hours. I don’t know why this decision was made. All things must pass, and the only thing constant is change.

If have been with me and my Photograph Paris in the Spring groups over the years, wasn’t it wonderful to wander and photograph in these gardens without the crowds? This is an opportunity that will not easily come again, so it is important to savor the time we did have, the photographs we made, and the memories.

If you are considering joining our group in Paris in the spring of 2021, don’t worry: there are many wonderful gardens and excursions in and near Paris, and we will find our way into some wonderful gardens and photographic adventures.

And keep in mind (in life as well as in photography) that since all things change, it makes huge sense to carpe diem.

Flowers at Giverny © Harold Davis

Willow Reflections, Giverny © Harold Davis

Giverny © Harold Davis

Flowers on Black versus an Inversion

Orchids on Black © Harold Davis

The image above, Orchids on Black, was created by photographing the flowers on a black background, with a bit of enhancement in LAB color. Flower Magic on Black, shown below, was photographed on a light box. The background of the image was converted from white to black using an LAB inversion of the L-channel.

Click here for my complete Creative LAB Color in Photoshop course, here for the FAQs on my website, and here for info about the 2020 session of the Photographing Flowers for Transparency workshop.

Special thanks to Jack and Ellen Anon.

Flower Magic on Black © Harold Davis

Patagonia Photography Adventure (March 21-31, 2021)

We’re pleased and excited to open for registration the new Patagonia Photography Adventure, March 21-31, 2021, with optional extension to Iguazu Falls (March 31 – April 4, 2021). This is a small photography group (6-12 people) with logistics provided by a major travel company, and is for me a dream trip that I am unlikely to repeat.

Click here for the complete itinerary (PDF), here for the Patagonia Photography Adventure Reservation Form, and here for the Iguazu Falls Extension Reservation Form. Please read the itinerary carefully, and let us know if you have any questions.

Refer to the reservation forms for trip cost and payment schedules. Note that a $500 early-bird discount will apply to the first six registrations.

Photo via Wilderness Travel

Patagonia Photography Adventure: Argentina’s Peaks and Glaciers

Some of the most spectacular mountains on our planet are found in Argentina’s Los Glaciare National Park, home to the sky-piercing peaks of the Fitz Roy massif. In collaboration with Wilderness Travel, we have created a photographic adventure that reveals the very best of this grand scale paradise, where rivers of ice pour down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

With options each day, our walks and hikes lead us to stunning photographic locations to capture the spires of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. We will visit the park’s magnificent glacier and the massive ice wall of Perito Moreno, one of Argentina’s natural wonders. Back at our comfortable rural estancias, including Helsingfors and Cristina, with their exclusive wilderness locations, we’ll celebrate each amazing day with home-cooked Patagonian fare and fine Argentine wines.

Photo via Wilderness Travel

Optional Iguazu Falls Extension

One of the most stunning natural wonders in the world, Iguazú Falls stretches a full mile across the Rio Parana, with 275 separate cascades—one third on the Brazilian side, two thirds on the Argentinian side—laced with rainbows and plunging hundreds of feet in a mist-shrouded subtropical landscape, truly an other-worldly spectacle. The cascades form part of the Iguazú National Park, known for more than 400 different species of birds. A walk along the footbridges of the park is a chance to spot colorful toucans and other birds. The park was declared a Natural World Heritage for Humanity by UNESCO in 1984. The Falls can be reached by paths, footbridges, and Zodiac, offering a number of different perspectives.

Click here for the complete itinerary (PDF), here for the Patagonia Photography Adventure Reservation Form, and here for the Iguazu Falls Extension Reservation Form.

Early-Bird Discount Deadlines Approaching

Our spring 2020 destination photo workshop to Southwest France no longer has vacancies. But we do have a couple of other wonderful opportunities, currently with significant early-registration discounts:

The substantial early-bird discount for Photographing Tokyo in the autumn of 2020 ends October 31, 2019 (click here for more information, and here for the Reservation Form).


For the best discount for 2021’s Photographing Paris in the Spring, please sign up before December 31, 2019 (click here for more information, and here for the Reservation Form).