Forest Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Driving back from giving a weekend night photography workshop last year I took the back roads on the Big Sur peninsula. I stopped at this forest view and shot five exposures at roughly 2 f-stop intervals on tripod down in the dark forest with light [...]

Yosemite View, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This photo appears in Creative Black & White: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques on pages 118-119. Here’s what I wrote about the image: Photographing during a clearing winter storm in Yosemite, I worked hard to find a slightly different angle to frame the marvelous vista [...]

Snow in the Forest, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Briefly noted: On a recent trip to Yosemite, snow was falling at the foot of the John Muir Trail heading up towards Vernal Falls. A short way up the trail, the snow ebbed and the sun started emerging—letting me snap this image of [...]

Come Back to the Valley, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. It’s spring here in Berkeley, but winter still clings to the mountains. On a recent trip to Yosemite, coinciding with spring break, I took Julian and Nicky to Yosemite. We hiked up to Vernal Falls in a snow storm, and I shot [...]

Cathedral Spires and Bridalveil Falls, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a view of Bridalveil Falls and Cathedral Spires in Yosemite Valley processed to simulate a pinhole camera: vignetting at the edges, softness, brightness in the center, high depth-of-field, and an overall antique look. Digital simulations of “looks” from the back [...]

Mare Island Infrared, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. While on the topic of infrared captures, this is an IR photo of a drydock at the old Mare Island naval shipyard. I particularly noticed the way the infrared capture increased the contrast and drama in the sky.

Winter Vista, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. To enhance this monochromatic winter vista of Yosemite, I used a split toning effect. I added a deeper sepia tone to the darker tones, and lighter sepia to the brighter areas of the image. In the analog darkroom, toning was a function of paper, processing and [...]

Ninth Wave, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I went over to the Marin coast on a day with a high surf warning. There was wind, too. I captured this breaking wave directly into the sun using a fast shutter speed (1/1250 of a second) to stop the motion. The sun made the [...]

Hill, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I’ve been thinking about lines in composition, and black & white. Here are two examples where both visual effects come into play. Above: A fence divides the water utility (EBMUD) lands from the public park in East Bay, and a path follows the fence up the hill. [...]

Point Reyes Twilight, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. In the LCD, this twilight view of Point Reyes looked like grey mush. Probably the fault of the auto white balance setting. Back home, I adjusted the color temperature to make the scene look more like its natural colors, and multi-RAW processed the image [...]

Coming into Zion, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Looking down at Zion Canyon, Utah in the bright spring sunshine, it was clear to me that I couldn’t create a single exposure that would capture the dynamic range from the deep, black shadows in the foreground to the white clouds in the background. [...]

Leaves of Grass, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I realized that I needed a fast shutter speed to capture this field of grass blowing in a brisk wind. Otherwise, the pattern would have gone mushy. The point of the thing is best seen when the image is larger. [200mm, 1/1000 of a second [...]

Surf, Kirby Cove, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. On a recent overcast evening, with my guest from Finland, on a bluff above Kirby Cove, I waited for the night lights of the Golden Gate Bridge. To pass the time, I tried long exposures of the white surf on the dark beach. My idea [...]

Point Bonita, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. View this image larger. The day after winter solstice, Bay area weather was crisp and clear, but with incoming rain clouds. I photographed Point Bonita and its lighthouse from Hawk Hill. In the other direction, I could see the Golden Gate and downtown San Francisco. In [...]

From time to time I repost from my archives. This is a reposting of a photo and the related story originally published in September 2006. Morning in the Foothills, photo by Harold Davis. View this photograph larger. Early in the morning of a chill day in February, Julian and I found ourselves along Route 49 just south [...]

Thanksgiving Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Thanksgiving in the Bay area was overcast and cloudy. Just before sunset there was a break in the clouds to the west, and I snapped this photo. [Canon Powershot G9, multi-processed RAW file, 44mm (210mm in 35mm terms), manual exposure mode, 1/60 of a second at [...]

Orange Horizon, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. The light fades on my bluff above the crashing ocean. The vista becomes a combination of islands of clarity in the sea spray and the obscurity of coastal fog. What was obvious becomes mysterious. The great rollers become hard blue lines across the sea. The [...]

Hike to Pirate’s Cove, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Julian had the afternoon off from school, so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and hiked to Pirate’s Cove, the notch in the rugged Marin Headlands coast about half way up the left side of this photo. On the walk back to [...]

Indomitable, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Winter morning in Yosemite dawned cold with flakes of snow and remnant fog, but the promise of a possible clear day with blue skies. Provided you carefully archive your files, digital means never having to say you’re done. This is a re-processed version of Golden Wonder with [...]

Yosemite Morning, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Coming down from a night spent photographing star trails on Glacier Point, I hit the Valley floor about 6AM. I tucked into my sleeping bag, inserted the ear plugs, and slept for a solid hour or so. At about 7AM a deep rumbling noise penetrated [...]