[Note: this is a reposting of a story originally published in August 2005.] .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Fresco Flower, photo by Harold Davis. I thought this photo looked like a painting when I took it, and I did my best to [...]

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Sexy Angel Face, photo by Harold Davis. This is an Angel Face rose from my garden. I think it is so sexy! Here’s another photo of the same rose bud, sexy (but in a different way): [Note: this [...]

Hydrangea Sheila blooms in the shade of my garden. I snipped this crown of flowers, and brought it inside to play with. The image combines two captures, both exposed for transparency, and a flatbed scan. View this image larger. [Composite image derived from Epson flatbed scanner and two Nikon D300 captures, one at 3 seconds and one at [...]

Day Lily in Morning Dew, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. In the early morning, in a shady nook in my garden, I found this day lily in the morning dew. At the close macro range of this photo, it’s hard to get all the flower in focus even with the lens fully stopped [...]

Gladiolus 2, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. There’s a clump of these wonderful gladiolas that grow in my garden this time of year. I cut this stem, and photographed it in a dark room on black. The only light source was an LED headlamp that I used to “paint” with light to [...]

Iris Panel, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. A clump of irises in my garden have the wonderful variegated stems you see in this photo. I wanted to photograph them while they were in their prime, but the background was messy and wouldn’t work. So I threw a large black cloth behind the [...]

Yellow Roses, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. When they heard about Katie Rose, our neighbors came over with these lovely yellow roses cut from their garden. I photographed the bouquet on a black velvet stage. The roses were both back lit and front lit, and presented a wide dynamic range: when the bright [...]

Flowers Are Stars on White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Life goes on. It’s hard to keep my thoughts off Katie Rose in the NICU, but I have work to do and other kids to take care of. Photography is therapy. It is fun. It keeps me strong. I gathered these flowers [...]

Gaillardia Lit from Behind, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I placed this Gaillardia x grandiflora on a black background, and lit the front of the flower using natural light and a diffuser. Then I used an LED light to shine pinpoint light from behind the flower at the center of the Gaillardia. I [...]

Sunburst, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a tiny heliotropic (meaning photo sensitive) flower in my garden. It only opens in bright sunshine, making it hard to photograph because it’s only available in bright, often harsh light. But worth the effort, I think. [Nikon D300, 105mm f2.8 macro lens (157.5mm in 35mm [...]

Petals Unfolding, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a close-up view of the almost transparent petals of the Papaver rhoeas I photographed the other day. [Nikon D300, 200mm f/4 macro lens (300mm in 35mm terms), 36mm extension tube, 4 seconds at f/36 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.]

Damask Rose, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Obviously, roses have a special symbolic meaning for us right now because of Katie Rose. I photographed this small, but fragrant beauty yesterday morning in our garden. [Nikon D300, 105mm f/2.8 macro lens (157.5mm in 35mm terms), 1/2 a second at f/40 and ISO 100, tripod [...]

Iris and Motion, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I like to work with my photography setups, equipment, and Photoshop in a what-if state of mind. When I’m in a what-if state of mind, I don’t care what the documentation says, or what some Photoshop guru says to do. I want to see what [...]

Pink Papaver, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. On a bright, but overcast, spring morning I saw this pink Papaver rhoeas in the morning dew. I photographed it head-on at f/16 for depth of field on the center, but a little less sharpness in the petals. Then I processed the photo to enhance [...]

Falling in Love on White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is the Papaver rhoeas ‘Falling in Love’ that I photographed on a black background. The version here gives me the advantage of a “twofer”: I created the white-background version of the photo in Photoshop by inverting the Luminosity channel (in LAB [...]

Falling in Love, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a photo of a Papaver rhoeas ‘Falling in Love,’ a double variety of Papaver rhoeas I got from Annie’s Annuals. I cut a flower off the profusion of these poppies in our garden, and photographed this flower indoors. I put the flower in [...]

Red Flowering Dogwood, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Phyllis and I celebrated our wedding anniversary last week. Sixteen years, three kids and one more on the way, it all seems like forever and no time at all. I’m so lucky to have a real life partner. My parents sent flowers as did Phyllis’s [...]

Daffodil, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. If you’ve ever looked closely at a daffodil like this beautiful specimen, you’ll know that within the outer yellow petals is an orange “trumpet”. The trumpet itself contains the reproductive parts of the flower: ovaries, pistil, and the stigma, style, and anthers shown in this photo. [...]

Clivia, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Clivia, a lily-like flower originally from southern Africa, grow on the shaded side of our house with very little intervention from me. These are slow growers, but spectacular, and unstoppable once established. I love them, but they’re tough to photograph in the deep shade, with their [...]

Pear Blossom Special, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Obviously, I have a fondness for small aperture, fully stopped-down flower macros that use high depth of field to convey sharpness. (I explain the relationship of aperture to depth of field in Chapter 2 of Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers.) For example, take [...]