I’ve had a little time lately to shoot more flowers on white. These two floral arrangements feature orchids—buying them for photography seemed a little expensive at the time, but in retrospect well worth it! (Click on the images to view them larger.) One of the key words in this kind of photography is “arrangement” because [...] Related posts:

When our new Epson 9900 printer arrived we had to shut the street for the delivery truck. The printer weighes 275 pounds, and it took three strong movers to get it from the curb into our dining room. Or probably I should say “the room formerly known as dining”—because it is now home to the [...]

The parents of one of Katie Rose’s buddies at pre-school are architects who  just bought a classical Berkeley shingle house from the early 1900s. In recent years this grand house has suffered from neglect, and been used as a boarding house. So it’s a good thing that the new owners are architects who know what [...] Related posts:

Arlington Avenue is a divided street that runs a block away from my home from Marin Circle in North Berkeley to downtown Kensington, California—a quaint low-key strip that hosts a friendly post office in the drugstore and California-Spanish style architecture. Arlington Ave is notable because the Hayward Fault, a major earthquake fault zone that is “capable [...]

Cherry Dance is manifestly a digital art creation. This collage combines a photo of blossoms on a cherry branch with two flat-bed scans of paper—using Photoshop to create a whole that resembles Japanese brush painting as much as it does tradional photography. There’s no doubt that cherry blossoms are among my most popular subjects and widely viewed. [...] Related posts:

Are you what you photograph? They say, “You are what you eat.” In a certain simplisitic sense this is obviously true. Therefore, if you photograph what you eat then you are what you photograph—as in the case of the leek I photographed below in cross section that became a flavorful part of our dinner soup. [...] Related posts:

As a professional photographer I almost always use my camera in manual exposure mode. Most of the time I have no use for programmed automatic or semi-automatic modes—or, God forbid, one of those exposure modes beloved of lower-end cameras such as “Sunset Mode” (yes, there really are cameras with such pointless exposure modes). One reason for [...] Related posts:

To create these images, I arranged flowers on a lightbox that was proportionally much wider than it was tall. Next, I shot straight down with a macro lens, bracketing for an HDR effect. I discarded the dark exposures, so my brackets essentially went from “correct” exposure to way overexposed (almost white). I shot the arrangements [...] Related posts:

Over the winter holidays I took our boys on a “field trip” to Fort Ross State Historic Park. Fort Ross marks the furthest point south of the expansion of the Russians down the California coast in the early 1800s. It was erected as a counter-point to the burgeoning Spanish colony of Yuerba Buena, later to [...]

This is a shot of professional model Liz Ashley. The lighting is from one strobe,  hand-held to the left of the camera. Related posts: The eye believes what it thinks it sees The eye believes what it thinks it sees. This allows... Self-Portrait in Faucet We’ve had a spate of minor—but surprisingly expensive—plumbing repairs recently.... Slow [...] Related posts:

In the dead of winter there’s not much color, even in California’s usually highly saturated gardens. The Tilden Park Botanic Garden emphasizes California native plants. It’s always a wonderful place to wander, but at the turning of the year I looked for texture and form rather than color. The succulent gardens, and in particularly these [...]

On Christmas Day I calculated that from the summit of Wildcat Peak the sun would set directly behind the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. This seemed like a great excuse for hiking off some excess holiday indulgence, so in the afternoon I grabbed Julian (my oldest son) and we made for the Inspiration Point trailhead [...] Related posts:

Phyllis and I are pleased and excited to see Photography with Harold Davis so active. After only a few months we are now up to 460 members. We never expected such an immediate and positive response. We have many exciting events planned for 2012, including a series of free webcasts as well as more free [...] Related posts:

Court jester or social conscience? You’ll find successful artists whose work falls into both these categories. For example, Jeff Koons is an intellectual light-weight who subcontracts out the actual construction of his work, and whose work exists as jokes to tillitate the ruling classes. On the other hand, The Disasters of War by Goya show [...] Related posts:

The Paperwhite, Narcissus papyraceus, is a small white flower related to the Daffodil. Grown from a bulb, the plant is originally from the Mediterranean basin. It’s commonly thought of as a house plant—and “forced” to bloom indoors for the winter holidays. By the way, forcing a bulb is a process that to some extent negates [...] Related posts:

The eye believes what it thinks it sees. This allows us to enjoy magic shows, movies, and two-dimensional art such as painting and photography. Any two-dimensional representation of three dimensions is of course an illusion. Problems begin when the brain gets into the act. The brain thinks it is the smart one, and doesn’t like [...] No related posts.

We’ve had a spate of minor—but surprisingly expensive—plumbing repairs recently. I took advantage of one of these to shoot our new kitchen faucet with my 200mm macro lens. Who knew I’d end up with a self-portrait? Probably all artists have some degree of narcissism, although I do try to keep mine in check. The kids [...]

This is an HDR image of the Berkeley Pier, the site of the Free Walk-and-Talk with Harold Davis on Saturday, December 17 at 4:00PM. Please consider joining us. Berkeley Pier © Harold Davis Exposure data: 90mm, seven exposures at shutter speeds from 1/250 of a second to 1.6 seconds; each exposure at f/11 and ISO [...]

Please join Harold Davis for three days of inspirational photography at Green Gulch Farm. This workshop runs from 5PM Friday August 3, 2012 through 10AM Monday August 6, 2012, and includes three nights of accommodations in the peaceful Lindisfarne guest house, a two-story Japanese-style retreat house that will be exclusively used by the workshop. Wholesome and tasty [...]

I’m often asked in workshops I lead where I get my inspiration and ideas for photography. I like to respond that “inspiration is not a tame lion.” This is a reference to the lion Aslan in the famous Narnia series of books by C.S. Lewis. Aslan, we are told repeatedly, is not a tame lion: [...]