My five-year-old son Nicky likes to ask me, "When is a door not a door?" Before I can answer, he tells me, "When it's a jar," and cackles wildly. In the same general spirit, I'd like to ask, when is a photograph not a photograph? My answer, and imagine me cackling wildly, is that a photograph is not just a...

Why should you take a photography workshop? One answer is that you'll learn something specific. For example, if you take my workshop Digital Workflow: From the Field to Flickr (I'll be giving it next at the Santa Fe Workshops from July 7-14) you'll learn a great deal about shooting digital under field conditions, and come away from my workshop with...

Why am I so interested in photographing water drops? What are the special challenges and techniques associated with photographing water drops? Do different water drops have different characteristics (in other words, is there a taxonomy of water drops from a photographer's perspective)? Orchid Water Drop, photo by Harold Davis. View this photograph larger. Read more about this image. Leaving the...

Wilder Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger. Read more about this image. OK, let's start with two questions. Would you think the photo above was taken into almost complete night? And why would someone go to a great deal of trouble to hike out into the wilds somewhere, mount their camera on a tripod, and take...