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Photography Books by Harold Davis

Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

• Introduction (PDF)
• Flowers and Light (pages 98-99) (PDF)

From the back cover: Technically, close-up photography is demanding. But with the right information you'll be able to unleash your creative potential in the world of close-ups.

...

Lavishly illustrated with the author's own close-up images, each photoprovides information about how to make creative close-upphotos. This book provides both inspiration and technical instruction. You may never photograph the world in quite the same way agin!

• Explore the world of close-up photography
• Learn macro photography techniques
• Extend focus with stacked images
• Create transparent and impressionistic images of flowers
• Find out how to use aperture creatively in your close-ups
• Make your own still life studio

Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

• Moving Lights (pages 72-73) (PDF)
• Freedom of the Night (pages 144-145) (PDF)

From the back cover: The night is an uncharted universe filled with surprisingly rich color, texture, and mood---just waiting to be captured by your digital camera. But the challenges of night photography are significant.

...

Learn to see another world. Enter into the unknown: become a creature of the night.

• Experience the joy of night photography
• Get the right equipment for shooting in the dark
• Learn how to expose photos at night
• Extend the dynamic range of night photos
• Capture star trails
• Minimize noise in night photography

Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

• Moving Lights (pages 46-47) (PDF)
• Aperture, Focus and Depth-of-Field (pages 50-51) (PDF)

From the back cover: Learn how to pre-visualize photos and compose images in your imagination. See in advance where your choices of lenses, lighting, focal length, and exposure will take you. Take advantage of RAW format. Master depth of field. Discover how to work with shapes, lines, and patterns, and so much more.

• Unleash the power of your imagination
• Learn to pre-visualize photos
• Find what's important about your subject
• Frame photos for impact
• Recognize powerful compositions
• Find magic in everyday objects

The Photoshop Darkroom: Creative Digital Post-Processing

• Front and back cover (PDF)
• Table of Contents (PDF)
• Introduction (PDF)
• Sample content (Expanding tonal range by using layers, a layer mask and gradient to multi-RAW process a landscape, PDF)

From the back cover: The Photoshop Darkroom offers limitless possibilities for photographers looking for jaw-dropping results, using powerful and innovative creative post-processing techniques. If you want folks to ask “How did you do that?” then this is the book for you! The images in The Photoshop Darkroom will inspire you and help you unleash your creative potential. You’ll learn to view your own digital photography with new eyes. Step-by-step directions show you real world examples of how to achieve the results you want from your photography and post-processing.

• Learn how to work with RAW image files
• Understand the Photoshop darkroom workflow
• Multi-process RAW files
• Create High Dynamic Range (HDR) images by hand
• Use layers and masking for compositing
• Best use Photoshop's tools to create stunning black & white images
• Create striking color effects using LAB color

From the introduction:

Working in the darkroom I’d marvel at the moments of magic: the image unfolding under the light of the enlarger, and appearing from nothing on the paper in the tray of developer. The magic when I process a digital image is comparable— but, for me, more powerful.

The Photoshop Darkroom shares these revelations with you: the great moments in which an apparently mundane or dark capture comes alive. Digital photography is one part photography, and one part software alchemy: creative post-processing.

A digital photographer who misses the opportunities that come after the photo is taken loses much of the power of the new medium. Therefore, a goal of The Photoshop Darkroom is to provide a framework of fundamental techniques you can use to enrich your creative work.

Ansel Adams compared his work to musical composition, saying his photographic negatives were the score and his prints the performance. With a digital photo, the RAW negative is the score, and how you post-process is the performance. The Photoshop Darkroom will jump start you on your journey towards peak postprocessing performances.

Make no mistake: The Photoshop Darkroom is for photographers. Photoshop is a tool, just like the enlarger and chemicals in an old-fashioned darkroom.

Unlike some Photoshop books, in The Photoshop Darkroom I don’t care about Photoshop except as a tool. Our concern is solely the ultimate image.

This is not a book about the latest bells and whistles in Photoshop. Almost everything I explain can be done with older versions of the program. You should be aware that the screen shots in this book show Photoshop CS3. If you are using a different version of Photoshop, both functionality and appearance may vary a bit, though the fundamental techniques that I present will not change.

There’s always more than one way to do anything in Photoshop. I make no claim that my way is the only way, or the best: only that my way works. Hopefully, seeing my way will spark your creativity.

Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

"If you buy only one photography technique book this year, make it Harold Davis's Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers. This book is an instant classic, and is the first to provide the information you need to really understand exposure from the perspective of the digital (as opposed to film) photographer. And Davis doesn't just talk about technique, he walks the walk - Davis's example photos are creative and awe-inspiringly beautiful. Best of all: he explains the tools and techniques used to create each photo in Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers."

—Rick Smolan, Photojournalist and creator of the Day in the Life book series

Today's digital cameras offer enormous technical sophistication, but the equipment alone won't help you capture compelling images. In Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers, photographer Harold Davis teaches you the essential light and exposure principles you'll need to take great photographs. Each chapter features Davis' breathtaking work with captions that explain how these images were created. Browsing his photographs will spark ideas for your own projects, and the chapters lessons teach you to apply the techniques he uses. This is a pragmatic guide for digital photographers looking for a creative way to explore their world.

Along with each photo, Davis explains his photographic process and creative intention, and shares technical information such as lens and exposure settings. Topics covered include:

• Understanding exposure, measuring light, and choosing the best exposure
• Working with aperture and depth of field
• Selecting shutter speed
• Using ISO, noise, and light sensitivity to your advantage
• Shooting in available and artificial light
• Understanding the true potential of the digital darkroom
• Starting with the best exposure in your camera, rather than relying on post-processing fixes

About the author
Harold Davis is a writer and professional photographer whose work has been widely published and collected. His most recent books are The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite & the High Sierra and 100 Views of the Golden Gate. Harold writes the popular Photoblog 2.0 at www.photoblog2.com.

From the introduction:
This book aims is to present the best practices of the craft of photography in the context of the digital era. A great photograph starts with the photographer’s understanding of light, and proceeds with a good (and sometimes creative) exposure.

Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers is a practical book for digital photographers who want to understand light and exposure and to use photography to explore their worlds. It is a substitute for neither your camera manual nor a good Photoshop book. My philosophy is that if you understand the principles behind a concept, it’s easy to look up the details.

That said, this book is rich in pragmatic details. For example, you can find the exact lens and exposure settings I used for every photo in this book. Speaking of the photos, I do believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. This cliché is certainly true when it comes to learning photography. It’s very reasonable to start with this book by finding a few photos that interest you, and discovering how they were made.

In fact, I designed this book to work for you on a number of different levels. If all you want to do is browse my photos, read the captions that discuss how each photo was made, and consider some of the light and exposure issues that went into making them, that’s fine. You can use the photos as a springboard, or an idea book, for taking photos of your own.

In other words, you don’t have to start at the beginning and end at the end. But, of course, I hope that eventually you do so—and that your journey with this book and making photos is as joyous and magical as mine has been.

100 Views of the Golden Gate

Book Description (jacket copy):

Unique among icons, the Golden Gate combines geography, topography, and engineering.

100 Views of the Golden Gate portrays the secular, serene, and spiritual grandeur of this symbol, following the path laid down by the great Japanese artist Hokusai, who wrote about Mount Fuji, “Each view is different, and each view expresses a lifetime.”

Harold Davis is a professional photographer and writer. His most recent books are The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite & the High Sierra and Light and Exposure for Digital Photograohers. He writes the popular Photoblog 2.0 at www.photoblog2.com.

Harold lives in the hills of Berkeley, California with his wife and three young sons, directly across San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate.

Read an excerpt from 100 Views of the Golden Gate (PDF).

The Photographer's Guide to Yosemite and the High Sierra

Book Description (back cover copy): The scenic wonders of Yosemite and the mountains that surround it—the high Sierra—attract visitors from around the world. If you are planning to visit Yosemite with your camera, photography will be important part of your trip to the area that John Muir called “the greatest temple” in the world. The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite and the Sierras provides insider information about exactly how to find the most scenic vistas in Yosemite and the Sierras, and how to go about taking great photos once you are there. You’ll learn about weather, photography and phases of the sun and the moon, and the best times of year to visit and photograph specific attractions. You’ll find out about the logistics of visiting Yosemite and the Sierras off-season—and discover the stunning photographic payoffs that can reward off-season travel.

Even if you plan to travel no further than your armchair (beside a roaring fireplace) you’ll enjoy the luscious photography that fills The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite and the Sierras. Yosemite is iconic in the history of photography and The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite and the Sierras presents an all new, digital way of seeing Yosemite.

Harold Davis is a photographer and the author of many books. Harold’s photographs have been widely published, exhibited, and collected. Many of Harold’s fine art photography posters are well known, including some recent alternatively processed digital flower images published by New York Graphic Society. Harold writes the popular Photoblog 2.0, www.photoblog2.com, which displays his photographs and covers a wide range of topics related to digital imaging. He has explored and photographed Yosemite and the High Sierra for more than thirty years.

Digital Field Guide

Book Description (back cover copy):

The digital camera has revolutionized photography. Sporting events, breathtaking landscapes, the mood of the sea, or a child's eyes as a present is opened-capture whatever fascinates you. Learn to use your images in ways only highly skilled professionals could manage a mere decade ago. With this practical guide in your camera bag, you'll have professional advice at your fingertips to help you get great shots, use all your camera's features, download and enhance your photos, and share them in dozens of creative ways.

* Understand digital camera basics

* Learn the secrets for getting a good close-up

* Find out when and why to use RAW format

* Explore dozens of formulas for shooting a variety of scenes, including suggested lenses, settings, and lighting options

* Rid your pictures of red-eye and other imperfections

* Create a slide show, prints, or e-mail- and Web-ready images

* Make the most of your camera's abilities with filters and other accessories

The digital camera has revolutionized photography. Sporting events, breathtaking landscapes, the mood of the sea, or a child's eyes as a present is opened—capture whatever fascinates you. Learn to use your images in ways only highly skilled professionals could manage a mere decade ago. With this practical guide in your camera bag, you'll have professional advice at your fingertips to help you get great shots, use all your camera's features, download and enhance your photos, and share them in dozens of creative ways.

• Understand digital camera basics
• Learn the secrets for getting a good close-up
• Find out when and why to use RAW format
• Explore dozens of formulas for shooting a variety of scenes, including suggested lenses, settings, and lighting options
• Rid your pictures of red-eye and other imperfections
• Create a slide show, prints, or e-mail- and Web-ready images
• Make the most of your camera's abilities with filters and other accessories

About the Author

Harold Davis is a strategic technology consultant, hands-on computer programmer, photographer, and the author of more than twenty books including Building Research Tools with Google For Dummies. Harold writes the Googleplex Blog and Photoblog 2.0. In addition to his work as a writer, Harold has been a technology company executive, enterprise consultant, software developer, and a professional photographer. He maintained a photography studio in New York City for over ten years. His photographs are published, exhibited, and widely collected.