Harold Davis's Blog, page 85
June 16, 2018
The Passion of the Rose
For me, photography is about passion, vision, and seeing the world closely. Oh, I could give you some technical information about how this image was made. For example, I could explain that I used a telephoto macro lens and an extension tube, that I focus stacked, and that the rose was lit obliquely by late afternoon sun through a window.
The Passion of the Rose © Harold Davis
But beyond a certain point, who but specialists and practitioners really cares about this kind of thing? Does anyone much care what brush a painter like Georgia O’Keeffe used? We care about the raw seeing, the passion and the romance, and the feeling that the image arouses within. As we should. This is the stuff that matters.
Related image: Kiss from a Rose, shown on my blog here and here.
June 12, 2018
White Daemon Series
The idea of this series of photos, created in collaboration with the model A Nude Muse, was to create images that were simultaneously attractive, eerie, uncanny, and otherworldly. Ignoring the Picasso-like displacement of body parts, the figure portrayed was to have one foot in this world, and one foot in another world—or perhaps some realm that is the realm of unearthly beings. Who knows what she can see of the future, or whether she is good or evil, or what the future brings.
White Daemon III © Harold Davis
White Daemon II © Harold Davis
White Daemon 1 © Harold Davis
White Daemon IV © Harold Davis
The technique I employed was to use a series of 8-10 in-camera multiple exposures using strobe lighting for each exposure. The camera did the combination of the imagery. For several reasons, one of which is that one can see instant results in the camera, this works better for this kind of image than photographing individual exposures, and later combining them in Photoshop. We used a white lace nightgown and a white lace scarf to add the dominant “spirit walker” theme to the model; her impact and affect in these images varies from Madonna to Bride to Succubus to Cassandra to a visitation from Death.
Model credit: A Nude Muse. Related images: See my Multiple Exposures series. If you get the chance, please let me know what you think by adding a comment, or via email.
June 11, 2018
Poppies Dancing on Black
This image is an LAB inversion of the L-channel of Poppies Dancing, with blacks and white interchanged.
Poppies Dancing Inversion © Harold Davis
June 10, 2018
Visit Paris in the Spring with a small group of Photographers
Visit Paris in the Spring with a small group of photographers. Early-bird discount applies. Click here for more information.
June 9, 2018
Vegetarian Homage to Anthony Bourdain
This is a breakfast avocado burrito that Phyllis made for Nicky, who is a vegetarian. Hopefully, Anthony Bourdain, who very sadly died yesterday, was quoted in his Washington Post obituary as having said (tongue-in-cheek): “Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food” would make an exception for Nicky and Phyllis’s avocado burrito (which someone told me looks more like a crab anyhow).
Avocado Burrito © Harold Davis
Mordant wit being one of his fortes, Bourdain went on to say that even worse than the vegetarians, from a cook’s point of view, were the “Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans.”
June 8, 2018
Poppies Dancing
In the great light of the world flowers are creatures too, and love to sway and dance in the breeze. In extraordinary beauty there is humor and escape from the mundane of this world. With grief for Anthony Bourdain, a hero of mine: as someone who travels a great deal for creative work I can understand why it might have contributed to his feelings of dislocation and sadness. These flowers are for him.
Poppies Dancing © Harold Davis
Papaver © Harold Davis
Kissy Face :-X © Harold Davis
Anthropomorphization of flower arrangements is now a thing: Flower Car; Friendly Sky Dragon; Flying Dragon Study; Yum; Poppy Snake; Wet Poppy Bud. Well, for the most part these collages are not actually anthropomorphic—although there is a face or two. If you know the right word, please add a comment or drop me an email. Thanks.
June 5, 2018
Relaxation in Rural France
Somewhere in Rural France © Harold Davis
Down the path to the Lot River from the Mas de Garrigue are a few rural homes on the bluff. I could easily imagine sitting here, perhaps reading a good book slowly, snacking on Pâté de Campagne, and sipping some nice local wine.
June 4, 2018
Petals on Parade
This is one of the light box compositions I’ve made using the glorious spring weather in northern California since I’ve been home from Spain!
Petals on Parade © Harold Davis
June 2, 2018
A Lens, Spirals, and a Selfie
On the boat ride around Menorca with PhotoPills camp, sitting up high on the upper deck, I saw a rig with a 19mm tilt-shift Nikkor. Cool lens. From the right angle, I could see internal colors and spirals, so I snapped an iPhone photo. Little did I know that I lurked in the reflections, so it was also a selfie!
Lens © Harold Davis
June 1, 2018
The Art of Photographing Flowers for Transparency: A new book from Harold Davis
We’re excited to announce a new book: The Art of Photographing Flowers for Transparency by Harold Davis.
Of course, my new book will showcase many of my botanical images. In addition, there will be extensive material explaining my process for photographing flowers on a light box. There will be a section on post-production, including a detailed guide to using LAB color for inversions of white-to-black, and for creative color effects.
The is a serious book in terms of its pedagogy, as the techniques I use in my transparent floral work are useful in many aspects of digital photography.
There will also be technical notes for the images in the book explaining how I made each image.
It’s a great deal of fun writing and designing this book. I have been working on this project for many years, so it is very exciting to me to see it progressing (my new book will be available in 2019)!
The images paired below are of poppies and mallow from my garden, captured, processed and inverted using the techniques I explain in The Art of Photographing Flowers for Transparency. If you’d like to learn more about these techniques before my new book is available, please check out my FAQs: Photographing Flowers for Transparency and Using a High-Key Layer Stack.
Poppies and Mallows on Black (Inversion) © Harold Davis
Poppies and Mallows on White © Harold Davis
