Harold Davis's Blog, page 72
March 31, 2019
Our side door
We generally prefer folks use our front door, where there is a nice sheltered porch for Amazon to leave their near-constant droppings. But of course if you are a friend we don’t care what door you use, just as long as you visit! It is a little confusing, since our house is on a corner, with the address on San Fernando and both entrances (front and side) on San Ramon. Phyllis recently put up this sign on our side door, patterned of course after Bilbo’s notice from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
Our side door © Harold Davis
March 29, 2019
March 23, 2019
Upcoming Bay Area Events
Please take note of the following local opportunities where I will be presenting:
Free presentation, Photographing Flowers for Transparency, Thursday March 28, North Berkeley Public Library.
Presentation to the Santa Clara Camera Club, Thursday April 4
We have one space available in the Photographing Flowers for Transparency weekend workshop masterclass, June 22-23, 2019
I look forward to the possibility of seeing you at one of these events!
March 11, 2019
Radiating Beauty: Creating a new photographic form with fusion x-rays
The shapes and forms are recognizable, yet the level of detail is deeper than the human eye can normally perceive: Leaves appear minutely laced and surfaces are impossibly intricate, somewhere between translucent and opaque. Welcome to the captivating work of photographer Harold Davis and radiologist Dr. Julian Köpke, who combine their skill, passion, and vision to create stunning X-ray photography and pioneering fusion images. Read more on the Pixsy blog (article by Natalie Holmes).
Sunflower X-Ray Fusion © Harold Davis
March 5, 2019
New Course: Creative LAB Color in Photoshop
Click here to view my course on LinkedIn Learning and here to view my course on Lynda.com. Here’s a preview:
The creative power of Lab from Photoshop: Creative Lab Color by Harold Davis
Course Description:
Explore the tools, techniques, and creative possibilities of Lab Color in Adobe Photoshop. Lab opens new opportunities for photo enhancement and creative image making, enabling you to apply contrast, sharpening, inversion, and equalization adjustments to individual LAB channels. If you want more exciting images, it’s time to explore Lab Color. In this course, Harold Davis explains how Lab compares to other color spaces and how it is implemented in Photoshop. He walks through his own professional post-production workflow for enhancing and transforming images with Lab Color. Then learn how to use Lab for more creative fun and image-making prowess with Harold’s custom Photoshop Lab action, color channels, and blending modes. Plus, learn how to leverage images in Lab for pattern making and surface design.
Topics Include:
Converting images to Lab Color space
Applying Curves to Lab channels
Selective sharpening
Inverting channels
Making per-channel equalizations
Using the Lab action
Combining Lab Color with blending modes
Making patterns with Lab images
Click here to view my course on LinkedIn Learning and here to view my course on Lynda.com.
March 4, 2019
Creative Black & White—Revised and Expanded
We’re almost through authoring the second edition of Creative Black & White. It has been revised, substantially expanded, and brought up to date. You can pre-order my new book from Amazon (the official publication date is August 1, 2019).
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 pre-order Creative Black & White from Amazon.
February 25, 2019
Explorations, projects, digital collages, constructions, and more
I confess: sometimes I lose track of my own work. Lately—over the past year or so—I’ve been working on related themes, groupings of images that are tightly, or loosely, linked. The very nature of blogging and social media, not to mention photography’s voracious ability to create imagery of all kinds, means these themes can get lost. In response, I decided to start an Explorations page with links to…explorations, digital collages, constructions, meanderings, and ongoing artistic projects—organized thematically.
This has been an enjoyable way for me to get a better handle on what I’ve been up to (sometimes this isn’t apparent even to the artist until some way down the road of creation). Maybe you will like some of the projects and ideas as well.
X-rays and Fusion X-rays (2018-2019); About
Camino de Santiago (2018-2019); Story
Monochrome Florals (2011-2019); Story
Bottled Light (2018-2019); Words
Curves Ahead (2019); Words
Homage to Rothko (2018-2019)
White Daemon (2018); About
Easy Travel to Other Planets (2018-2019)
Optical Studies (2018-2019); Story
Petal Galaxy (2015-2019); Story
Dancing with the Stars (2017-2018); Story
Blades of Grass (2017-2018); About
February 24, 2019
Homage to Rothko
Homage to Rothko © Harold Davis
My Left Foot
My Left Foot © Harold Davis
February 20, 2019
Paris from the 18th Arrondissement
I used my iPhone to snap this somewhat unusual view of the Parisian landscape from the heights of the 18th Arrondissement, a window high on the slopes of Montmartre, with the Eiffel Tour the only easily recognizable landmark. In a recent webinar for Topaz, I used the resulting iPhone JPEG to show the power of multi-RAW processing after turning the JPEG into a RAW (DNG) file using Topaz’s JPEG to RAW AI. I processed a darker verion for the sky, and a lighter version to bring out the detail in the foreground cityscape, and combined the two versions using a layer mask and gradient in Photoshop.
Eiffel Tower in Paris Landscape © Harold Davis
