Harold Davis's Blog, page 65
July 22, 2019
My Artist Statement
Mountains on the Beach © Harold Davis
I haven’t reviewed the Artist Statement I wrote a number of years back for quite a while, and I recently had cause to take another look at my statement. I’m pleased that my Artist Statement stills speaks of me, and for me. Here’s the gist of it (you can read my full Artist Statement by clicking here):
My work lies at the intersections of many styles and disciplines: between east and west, classicism and modernism, photography and painting, and the new technologies of the digital era versus the handcraft traditions of the artisan. To understand my imagery, one needs to see where it fits within each of these dichotomies.
Before I explain, let me mention that my primary goal is not to evoke academic, scholarly, or pedantic understanding. I’d almost rather my work not be understood–so that the response is evoked on a primal level that has more to do with the heart and gut than the intellect.
A great deal of thought goes into my work, but it shouldn’t have to take thought to enjoy it. At the simplest level I am trying to evoke–at both conscious and unconscious levels–a sense of serenity, wholeness, and wonder. My work can be experienced and enjoyed simply and organically for its structure and beauty.
With many of my images, unwrapping the sense of wholeness that the work conveys is not immediate. I am asking someone experiencing my images to have the patience to contemplate–and perhaps resolve a visual puzzle–but I don’t necessarily let on upfront that my viewers will be confronting a conundrum.
…
I believe that advances in the technology and craft of digital photography have created an entirely new medium. My years of contemplation have opened my eyes and my heart, and taught me to see more deeply. I use this alchemy of wonder to combine the traditions of painting and photography with new technology.
Panorama of the Kumano Sanzen Roppyaku Po © Harold Davis
July 21, 2019
Creative Black and White 2 Ed Now Available (with Discount Code!)
I’m very pleased that my new book, Creative Black & White, 2nd Edition, is now available. The publisher, Rocky Nook, is offering a 40% discount. Click here to buy Creative Black & White 2nd Ed directly from the publisher. Use the code “HDAVIS40” [no quotes] at checkout to apply the discount (you can also use my discount code for all other Rocky Nook books, by the way!).
Here are the links for my book on Amazon.com and on B&N as well, so the choice of supplier is yours.
If you like Creative Black & White, 2nd Edition, I would really appreciate a thoughtful review. Thanks!
Creative Black & White has been revised, substantially expanded, and brought up to date. I’ve added entire sections, substantially enlarged the book (it is 80 pages longer than the first edition), and most of the photos are new. Every photo includes information about how it was made, both from a technical perspective, and also the story about my thinking behind the image.
As I note in the Preface to this Second Edition, “Of course, I was flattered to be asked to write this revised and expanded second edition of Creative Black & White. One of the goals of this new edition is to bring the tools and techniques explained in this book up to date. This is particularly important in the realm of Lightroom and Photoshop software, and with the plug-ins that are a necessary extension of the Adobe ecosystem.
“Beyond keeping current, I want to help you become a better and more creative photographer, whatever your interest level or toolset may be.”
It’s been great fun updating this book, making a good book even better, refreshing the images, and bringing the software explanations up to date. I hope my new book proves to be inspiring and useful to you!
Click here to buy my book from Rocky Nook (please use the HDAVIS40 discount code for your discount), here for my book on Amazon, and here on Barnes & Noble.
July 17, 2019
Nautilus Spiral Imagery
Nesting Bowls and a Nautilus Slice © Harold Davis
The graceful curve of the interior of the Nautilus shell is beloved by artists, and has often been a subject of my imagery. The other day, I placed a slice of a Nautilus shell showing its spiral within a series of kitchen bowls.
X-Rays revealed the interior spirals within two intact Nautilus shells (below). An actual Nautilus shell before it has been sliced is pretty solid looking (as you can see in my photo of a whole shell on Flickr), but the x-rays don’t care about the outer, opaque casing, and reveal the inner spirals in all their glory.
Nautilus X-Rays © Harold Davis
One of my best-known Nautilus images, Nautilus in Black and White, was captured on a light box, the back lighting accounting for the inner glow at the core of the spiral. In post-production, I inverted in LAB color, swapping white for black and black for white, and simulating a black background in the image (below).
Nautilus in Black and White © Harold Davis
Another very well-known image of mine is a Photoshop composite in which a spiral staircase (from San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center) blends, apparently seamlessly, into an enlarged Nautilus shell spiral at the bottom of the stairwell (Spirals, shown below).
Spirals © Harold Davis
July 15, 2019
Weaving with Light
Weaving with Light © Harold Davis
Recently I was asked, “Ok. I have to know what these are and how were these lovely pieces produced?”
A fair question, but one I have some ambivalence about answering. Not (as might be supposed) because I fear giving away secrets. There are no secrets anymore. Actually, I’d rather have folks immersed in an image. Not thinking about me, and certainly not thinking about my techniques.
But it is a fact that I have been working on these images for a while now, about six months, and have amassed a considerable body of work. You can check it out using these links: Bottled Light Exploration; Easy Travel to Other Planets; Earthlight; Blue on Red; Homage to Rothko; A Point of Information; Approaching Indigo; Playing with Light; Cosmic Misunderstanding; Life is Strange; More abstractions!; The Making of the Abstractions; Abstracts, and a Photographic Mystery.
Mostly, this style of image making is “a hecka” fun! I am having a blast.
Natural Bridge © Harold Davis
To get down to the nitty-gritty, I set the photography up using glasses and glass vases. There is liquid in the glassware, mostly (but not always) food color. Sometimes I use clear water in colored glass, and other times I use a fluid such as wine or maple syrup that has a color on its own.
The imagery is primarily created using strong back lighting, so each colored vessel of water casts a variety of colors on the vessels in front.
Finally, I use a macro telephoto lens, often with an added extension tube, handheld at a fast shutter speed and a wide-open aperture (f/1.8) to create very low depth-of-field photos focused very close, and capturing whatever phenomenon the light is creating.
I actually think you’d have to see the setup to believe it!
Blue Bars 1 © Harold Davis
Mostly, these are single shots, pretty straight from the camera, and with almost no serious tweaking in post-production. I like keeping things simple, and it is fast and easy not to need to spend a great deal of time in Photoshop.
But in a couple of images—think Cosmic Misunderstanding and Weaving with Light, the image at the start of this story—I’ve added Photoshop post-production doodling, photo composition, and photo-compositing of an image with itself to the mix.
After all, why not?
Blue Bars 2 © Harold Davis
Yellow Vase and Blue Vase © Harold Davis
This one was photographed on a mirror, into a standalone glass concave lens, with a smaller aperture and more depth-of-field than I usually use for these images:
Optical Wheel © Harold Davis
July 14, 2019
Black and White Cookies: What’s in a Name?
Black and White Cookie © Harold Davis
The Black and White cookie, shown here in an iPhone grab shot converted to black and white in Snapseed, goes by many names. In New York City, where I come from, they are simply “Black and White” cookies. This makes sense to me. But in New England they are “Harlequins” and in the Midwest “Half Moons.” In Germany, and most of the rest of the world, they are “Amerikaners.”
Even the origin of the name “Amerikaners” is controversial: it is rumored that the cookie was named after the post-World-War-II American soldiers who brought them to Germany. On the other hand, and perhaps less plausibly even if it is in the dictionaries this way, the name “Amerikaner” is said to be a corruption of Ammoniumhydrogencarbonat, the German for ammonium bicarbonate, a leavening agent used in baking the cookie.
Using yet another name, in a reference to racial harmony, President Obama dubbed them “Unity cookies” in 2008. And, in a Seinfeld episode, Jerry asks, if black and white mix together well on a cookie, why can’t they do the same in society?
Great question (and a tasty cookie) for these troubled times.
July 13, 2019
Featured on Macro Photography Live Chat Show
I am featured on episode #46 of the lively and entertaining Macro Photography Live Chat Show. Click here for the YouTube replay of the episode featuring my work recorded recently.
Pale Garden © Harold Davis
On the hour-long show, my interlocutor, the enthusiastic Janice Sullivan, and I had a wide-ranging discussion. One topic covered was my Artist Statement, which I haven’t looked at in quite a while. It was so cool to take a look at this with fresh eyes and be able to say: Yes, this is me. This is what I aspire to be as an artist. Harold, you keep on truckin’!
Tulips X-Ray Fusion © Harold Davis
If you haven’t seen any of the videos of my presentations of my work, here are some that might interest you:
The Art of Photographing Flowers for Transparency (B&H)
Black and White in the Digital Era (2017)
A Creative Palette of Possibilities Using Topaz (2018)
An oldie-but-goldie (from 2009): the KQED-TV segment showing me at work!
Degrees of Translucency © Harold Davis
July 11, 2019
Angel’s Trumpets
Phyllis and Nicky came home with this branch from an Angel’s Trumpets shrub (of the Brugmansia genus). They had cropped it from an overhanging specimen in the neighborhood. Since Brugmansia flowers wilt almost instantly, I hurried to photograph it on my light box.
Angel’s Trumpets © Harold Davis
Some interesting facts about Angel’s Trumpets: The common name of this plant and flower comes from the large, trumpet-shaped flowers that Brugmansia shrubs and bushes exhibit. A close relative of Datura, Brugmanisa is highly toxic, and is one of the most poisonous decorative plants. Although fairly popular in gardens, Brugmansia is extinct in the wild. It is believed that the extinction of some animal responsible for spreading the seeds of the Brugmansia became extinct, causing the plant extinction in the wild, although of course the plant continues to exist as a human cultivar.
In the past, several South American cultures have used Brugmansia to discipline naughty children, so that they might be scolded by their ancestors in the spirit world, and become better behaved. Mixed with other psychogenic agents, maize beer and tobacco leaves, it has also been used to drug wives and slaves before they were buried alive with their dead master.
Another beautiful but deadly flower: Gloriosa Lily.
July 7, 2019
All this, and Heaven too!
It’s with great joy that I announce a full panoply of interesting workshops. What could be better than intriguing places, fun and interesting people, and the chance for exciting photography? Here is some of what I have coming up, in chronological order:
Photographing the Great Gardens of Maine , August 11-17, 2019 at Maine Media Workshop. This year we’ll have access to a great range of public and unique private gardens to photograph. In many cases , there would be no other way to get access to these locations. Click here for more information and registration. It is a great time of year to be in the heart of coastal Maine and photographing these luscious gardens, and there is still space available in the workshop.
Dahlia Mandala © Harold Davis
2020
Patagonia, January 2020. This will be an extremely small group of intrepid travelers, with the group logistics organized by a well-known international travel organization. Please drop us an email to be placed on the interest list. Winter in the northern hemisphere is summer in the southern hemisphere, so this is a great time to visit the wilds of Patagonia.
Romantic Southwest France , April 29-May 7, 2020. Early-bird discount applies. Click here for information, here for a detailed itinerary (PDF), and here for the Reservation Form. The workshop is hosted in an exquisitely renovated fortified farmhouse in the Lot River Valley. This has been a popular and successful workshop with very limited space availability, so please let us now as soon as possible if you’d like to come. This group is almost full. If you’d like to join us, please contact us ASAP to see if we can accommodate you! Early-bird discount through the end of August.
Photographing Flowers for Transparency with Harold Davis , June 20-21, 2020. Click here for information and registration. Please contact us if you have difficulty registering and we can register you manually. This workshop, given annually in Berkeley, CA, has consistently filled well in advance of the workshop date. We’re pleased to announce this workshop with plenty of lead time so that you can plan around the dates if you are interested.
Exploring Tokyo for Photographers with Harold Davis and Mark Brokering , October 24 – November 1, 2020. Early-bird discount applies. Click here for more information, and here for the Reservation Form. I am really excited about this one, which is starting to fill up.
2021
Paris in the Spring , April 24 – May 2, 2021. After-hours artist visit to Monet’s gardens at Giverny included in the small and intimate Paris photo workshop . Early-bird discount applies. Click here for more information, and here for the Reservation Form.
Click here for my Workshops & Events page. I have a number of interesting upcoming conference and event appearances that haven’t been publicly announced yet, I will post them as soon as I can. You can also subscribe to my email list to get notifications.
I hope to see you with your camera in a workshop! If not now, when?
Flowers at Giverny © Harold Davis
July 6, 2019
Danse Macabre and the Tree of Life
Danse Macabre and the Tree of Life © Harold Davis
Want more fantastic imagery? Check out Surreal Lady Fish, my Multiple Exposures portfolio of in-camera model photography, and a selection of Impossible composite imagery.
The Danse Macabre a/k/a “The Dance of Death” is an allegorical artistic genre of the late middle ages. The point is that no matter what our station in life, we all die. Danse Macabre images are a kind of momento mori, to remind folks of the vanity and ephemeral nature of all earthly things.
This image is a Photoshop composite of five photos: two in-camera exposures of a model (each containing a number of exposures), a background canvas used as a texture, a skull from the Paris catacombs—and, of course, the Tree of Life from the slopes of Mount Diablo.
July 5, 2019
Fresh from the Garden
This relatively straightforward yet elegant (if I say so myself) light box composition uses flowers directly from our garden.
Campanulas, Poppies, and a Clematis © Harold Davis
