Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Worlds with Harold Davis

Description

Capture stunning macro floral images with this gorgeous guide by acclaimed photographer Harold Davis. You'll learn about different types of flowers, macro equipment basics, and the intricacies of shooting different floral varieties in the field and in the studio. Harold also shows you techniques in the Photoshop darkroom that can be applied to flower photography to help you get the most out of your images. Beautiful and authoritative, this guide to photographing flowers is a must-read for every photographer interested in flower photography. Photographing Flowers will also win a place in the hearts of those who simply love striking floral imagery.

Harold Davis is an award-winning professional photographer. He is the best-selling author of more than 30 books, including The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations (Focal Press), Creative Porraits: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Black & White: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques (Wiley), The Photoshop Darkroom: Creative Digital Post-Processing (Focal Press) and Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers (O'Reilly). Harold writes the popular Photoblog 2.0, www.photoblog2.com, and is a regular photography and Photoshop columnist for Photo.net, a photography site with more than one million members. Harold is a popular presenter on a wide range of digital photography and Photoshop topics. His workshops are sought after and often sold out. In addition to writing and photography, Harold has been a software engineer, an enterprise technology consultant, and an Internet company executive. Photographic adventures and assignments have taken him across the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountains in Alaska. He has photographed the World Trade Towers, hanging out of a small plane, followed in the footsteps of Seneca Ray Stoddard, a 19th-century photographer of the Adirondacks, and created human interest photo stories about the residents of Love Canal, an environmental disaster area. Harold is well known for his night photography and experimental ultra-long exposure techniques, use of vibrant, saturated colors in landscape compositions, and beautiful creative floral imagery. He is inspired by the flowers in his garden, hiking in the wilderness, and the work of great artists and photographers including M.C. Escher, Monet, van Gogh, and Edward Weston.

"In this book Davis offers his knowledge and experience in the art of floral photography, presenting not only the results of his beautiful creations, but explanations of how each photograph was captured: the set up, the equipment and even the camera settings used for each brilliant image. The author takes you beyond the point of capture and discusses processing, both in a lab environment and digital post processing, as well as offers side-trips through history to learn a bit from the masters of art and photography, such as Van Gogh and O'Keeffe. Davis even goes so far as to share affordable and easy use studio setups which he has designed over the years. Using his techniques wonderfully artistic images can be created! For any photographer interested in floral photography - whether amateur or pro - this book will not only tutor them, but will inspire them."--San Francisco Book Review "I read Photographing Flowers right before visiting my daughter and her husband in Los Angeles earlier this year. Considering how few floral opportunities there are during the winter months in Central New York, I was ready for whatever Southern California could dish out. Harold's book had sufficiently inspired me, and Los Angeles didn't let me down. Harold is a much better photographer of flowers than I, and his photos are consequently far more impressive. Many of his images are macro shots where your eyeball is right in the flower. Nevertheless, I was happy with the shots I got and pleased that Harold's book gave me some additional motivation to grab them. If you've read any of my other reviews of Harold Davis' books (here, here, here, or here), then you already know that I have a high regard for his abilities. This book is no different and would make a great addition to anyone's how-to photography library regardless of experience level. When it comes to macro flower photography books, this one has no competition."--PhotoFidelity.com