Apple, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Half of an apple. Simple, basic—to the core! However, an image of this apparent simplicity is often not as easy to make as one might think. It usually takes a fair amount of artifice to create an image that seems very simple.

Lost Mesa, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Following up on my threat (or was it a promise) to add waterfalls to a pine cone, I’ve created an impossible world. When I’m not taking kids to the Adventure Playground, this is how I spend my weekends! Besides the pine cone, this Photoshop composite [...]

Pine Cone, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. On our way down to Kirby Cove, Mark and I passed this Pine Cone on the trail covered with green lichen. The close-up image reminds me of a geological formation—or an aerial view of a broken landscape studded with mesas. My next step once I [...]

Back, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Looking at this photo in Adobe Bridge, it was the most underexposed of the set—and very, very dark. The histogram was bunched tightly to the left. You’d expect some of the histogram to be left-biased. After all, the background is black—and an exposure histogram is a [...]

Athena, photo by Harold Davis. My article (and tutorial) HDR in Adobe Photoshop CS5 is now live on Photo.net. Here’s the description: “HDR—High Dynamic Range—imaging is a technology, concept and aesthetic that has developed in the digital era in answer to the problem of the limited range from light to dark that can be captured [...]

The Riddle, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Briefly noted: What is the question? What is the answer? There’s a story here. But it’s carefully guarded by this pair of sphinxes who take their modeling seriously. IR capture with human (and stone) models at the Mountain View Cemetary in Oakland, California.

Mission Peak Sunset, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. On Thursday evening Steven, Eric, and I took the “steep trail” up the flanks of Mission Peak (above Fremont, California). Steven’s goal was to set his camera up to take continuous 30 second star exposures over night. He planned to retrieve his gear the [...]

The Dictator’s Architect, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Briefly noted: This Photoshop composite includes pieces of governmental architecture from a number of places, including San Francisco’s City Hall and Fulgenica Batista’s Presidential Palace in Havana, Cuba. My idea was to create an architectural fantasy reminscent of a Piranesi etching. I wanted the [...]

Alarm Permits: If you are operating an alarm system in EDC you most likely need to obtain an Alarm Permit, but again it is not required right away and in most cases you need the alarm installed before you get the license.

Find Online Form Here:
http://www.edcgov.us/sheriff/forms/ALARM_PERMIT_APP.pdf

EL DORADO COUNTY
ALARM PERMIT APPLICATION
1
Sheriff’s Office
Central Dispatch

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 [...]

Faking Star Trails, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I faked these star trails. Meaning that this image is not based on an exposure, or combined composites of exposures, long enough to produce the star trails shown. The simulated star trails are an effect created in Photoshop from a single, relatively short exposure. [...]

On October 21, the third annual poker tournament fundraiser will take place, and this year it’s pirate-themed. Texas Hold ‘em is the game, and dinner will be provided.

Becoming a Dream, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Creativity is very important to me, in photography and in life. I do not think that being creative is a “tame lion”: there are no rules about how to be creative. Creativity is fluid and wave-like; it is not rigid, mechanical, or about repetitive [...]

I just wanted to share with you some comments made by one of our Little Brother’s regarding his match. He and his Big Brother have been matched for just over 4 years now. The “Little” is in high school, and just started his first job. He told me that having a Big Brother has made a HUGE impact in his life.

Cycle of Life, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Spring turns to summer, the precise demarcation of the season change lost for me in a haze of books to write, photography in the studio, new Photoshop features to play with, and family matters. Not to mention the oddities of the Pacific weather system [...]

Alien Fresh Jerky, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. I used this photo in a demonstration for our new Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations. The point was to show Photoshop CS5′s new content-aware fill feature. I used content-aware fill to automatically remove the power wires from the original photo. As I noted [...]

The new Nello Olivo Tasting Room will open soon. 

It is located in Sequoia's cellar and is connected to the original cellar of the 1853 house, used today as Sequoia's wine cellar. 

Kaye Medellin, Executive Director, Child Development

Eye Pluribus, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. This is a composite photo collage created in Photoshop—as if you couldn’t tell! The background image shows the shadow of a flower backlit on a piece of tracing paper (below, top). The ocean view is an evening shot of surf at Drakes Beach (below, middle). [...]