My photography is my excuse for meditating in the garden, and the garden is my sanctuary. One does not really need an excuse to enter a sanctuary, but it helps to cloak my act of devotion with some veneer of practicality.

It is good to put aside the rush of modern life. Leave the cell phone outside the garden—unless you need it as a camera trigger, or to find your way through the maze of a large Japanese garden.

Forget about business, receivables, the needs of kids, the politics of empire. You are here in the garden. The flowers are expending their short lives in part to give one grace to enjoy. Water is flowing. Hummingbirds are engaging in their quick motions, using their long tongues to lap nectar. Within a blossom a bee is replete with pollen, its side panniers bulging.

All senses are occupied, but in a peaceful way. This may be my garden, but I am not the one controlling sun, wind, and weather. Clouds drift lazily overhead. The sun shifts the angles of shadows, casts heat, life, and life, and heliotropic flowers respond. Fragrance drifts on the breeze.  The time is yours, now, and forever, and no reason to fill this sweet ephemeral moment with the clamor of the monkey mind. The garden is exquisitely peaceful.

Sometimes it rains, and the joy, the pure joy as wetness abounds. Each moment is a passing world, and it is yours to enjoy in quiet contemplation.

When it is my garden, the pleasures are even more sweet. I am the steward. I know these rocks, these plants, these trees. Here is the maple I planted a quarter of a century ago when it was a small sapling. Here’s the cherry tree that I planted when my son was born.

I shape, comfort, and work with each square millimeter, trying to tease out the essence that the garden is showing me. It is pleasing that my garden is small in dimensions, so that my tasks are manageable, not grandiose, and not a chore.

Each new flower is a blessing, and I tend the plants helping the stressed and providing fertilizer and comfort to the green living beings.

In my small plot, I am benign gardening god, and my hands and touch are in the dirt and on every vista.

The world at large can be wondrous and magical, and I am fully at home as a pilgrim in the world. But astoundingly there is as much magic and whimsy in the near-at-hand, in my garden flowers, twigs, and other botanical ephemera.

I am enjoying at this time in the world not engaging too much beyond the borders of “my country” (within our garden gate). Next year, who knows? 

To get your $100 discount coupon off my workshop (or most other Maine Media workshops for that matter), go to https://www.mainemedia.edu/annual-survey/and take a survey.  My workshop must be purchased by March 31, 2026 for the discount to apply!

Workshop description: To resolve these two semi-paradoxes, in this hands-on workshop, we will approach composition as an instance of open-ended two-dimensional design. Photographic exercises will start with simple shapes, such as lines and circles, and proceed through patterns and repetitions, and onwards to spirals, fractals, and abstractions. Field sessions will take advantage of the “target-rich” mid-coast Maine scenery. Classroom discussions will be intended to provoke thought about composition basics and continue to enable individual integration of the process of composition into each participant’s creative practice.

When and where: Online on Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 4pm PT (7pm ET). Click here for registration.

Cost: $25.00 (includes recording)

Description: In this presentation, Harold will delight your heart and mind with his intimate portraits of flowers. Along the way, he will share his passion for floral photography and the tools and techniques for creating effective macro compositions.

Click here for Info and Registration! Note: This is an affiliate link, and I will receive a portion of the fee.

Here’s my entire series of six miscellaneous United States postage stamps, shown on a page of the current USA Philatelic Magazine. The stamps are © USPS and the images are © Harold Davis. The 4-cent Angel’s Trumpets is new in 2026.

Originally designed for the Canon rangefinder, Nikon soon jumped into the fast lens arms race with their own fast lens, to be followed by Leica’s Noctilux 50mm f/0.95, which has gone through many iterations. Compared to my “Noct,” this lens is interpretative and far less clinical.

Time will tell, but I think I like my Dream Lens very much.

My lens has been refurbished and converted to the Leica M mount. It’s surprisingly short and wide in design, and mostly covers the lens release button on my Leica 11 MP (I can depress it, but it takes fingernails and a bit of dexterity).

A portrait shot into the Dream Lens (made with my macro probe) is shown below, along with two flower images shot with the lens wide open at f/0.95.

Monday, November 9 to Saturday, November 21, 2026 — 13 days and 12 nights

Click here for a detailed Itinerary, and here for the Reservation Form.

Overview: Gardens and gardening have been an important part of Japanese culture for more than one thousand years. In this exciting tour, noted photographer Harold Davis (author of Creative Garden Photography) and Japanese cultural ambassador Kana Hattori will lead us to explore the great gardens of Japan with our cameras. While this is primarily a photography tour, we will also learn about related Japanese horticultural traditions, including flower arranging (ikebana), growing bonsai, and visit the flower districts and plant nurseries that Japanese gardeners frequent. Click here for more information!

This tour is already filling up, so if you are interested please don’t wait. Click here for more information, Click here for a detailed Itinerary, and here for the Reservation Form.

I’ve been making my “personal choice” best-of selections for many years, going back to 2013. These annual selections can be found here. My choices are idiosyncratic, based on no discernible criteria whatsoever, and simply are my personal taste. These selections are by no means complete. A more thorough catalog of my work can be found on Flickr, Instagram, and on my blog (but many of my images never get blogged even if I like them and they are widely reproduced).

Please enjoy my photographic journey for 2025 as we come to the changing of the years.

Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and creative 2026!

Serpentine Sunflower Tree

Yesterday I decided that my Serpentine Sunflower (Helianthus bolanderi) was getting a bit “long in the tooth” (insert favorite joke about serpents and teeth here). Indoors, I deconstructed the sunflower bush, then reconstructed it on my light box in the shape of a tree. Read more.

Maple Leaves and Moss

Succulent

Yearning (Vase with Tulips)

As the tulips settled into my arrangement in the vase they reached out, curved, and seemed to combine the wisdom of aging with continued vitality. Read more.

Hellebores

Hellebores are small shade plants in the Ranunculus family. You may have to get down on the ground to view this gorgeous perennial, which blooms early in the spring. Read more.

Garden Path

Tulips of Yesteryear

Poppies Galore

My garden is in full bloom, and the new enchanted garden is exciting. The whole ensemble is so peaceful and serene…Read more here and here.

My Prickly Heart

The cactus was bulging out of its pot, and looked vaguely heart shaped. I worked in Photoshop to expand the visual resemblance to a Valentine’s Day heart, with the results you see here. Read more.

Elemental

I spent a few days on the Oregon coast in a model photography workshop. I primarily worked in black and white with my Leica Monochrom M11 using an orange filter. Read more.

Lovely

Socks with Mini

Red Velvet

The poppies I planted in my garden in the autumn are blooming wonderfully. I’ve been enjoying photographing them, this year focusing on the core of the flower. Read more.

Celebration of Poppies

I am traveling in Japan through the end of the month, and by the time I get back most of the poppies in my garden will have bloomed and faded. The cycle of life when it comes to flowers can be short, but always sweet. Read more.

Miyajima

Pine Tree, Ritsurin Garden

Magnolia

For this black and white image made with my Leica Monochrom M11 I experimented with different color filters. Read more.

Rose

To make these images, I turned the center column of my tripod upside down. Safely getting my camera into the now-upside-down ARCA-style clamp took a measure of care and dexterity. Read more.

Autumn Sunset at Koun-ji 

Autumn Red

Gazania

The Gazania, commonly known as the African Daisy, is a highly heliotropic flower. This means that it opens in direct sunshine, and closes back up in the evening (or on very cloudy days). Read more.

Sword Fern Frond

To make these portraits of an up-close-and-personal Western sword fern (Polystichum munitum) frond beginning to unfurl, I used my 135mm lens on a bellows. Read more.

Raindrops on a Rose

I had great fun yesterday photographing a rose in my garden after an overnight shower. In the morning, the rose had wonderful, small water drops on its petals. Read more.

Mandala 101 Inversion

The other day I set out to create a mandala using flower petals on my light box. Read more.

Windows on Autumn

Portals

I hope you’ve enjoyed this overview of my 2025 photography adventures. This year has been not without challenges for myself, our family, and the world, but I have enjoyed traveling, spending time with my family and in my garden, being creative, and growing as an artist! 

Most of my images are available as prints. If you are interested, please let us know.

Check out my self-selected bests from previous years in Best Images Annuals!

Happy Holidays from Harold & Phyllis Davis

Per the USPS: This 4-cent stamp follows the 2024 release of other low-denomination flower stamps: the 1-cent Fringed Tulip, 2-cent Daffodils, 3-cent Peonies, 5-cent Red Tulips and 10-cent Poppies and Coneflowers. Low-denomination stamps are available in panes of 20 and coils of 10,000. To create these images, photographer Harold Davis backlit the flowers on a lightbox and combined multiple photographic exposures, resulting in a luminous, transparent look. Ethel Kessler, an art director for USPS, designed these stamps.

Click here to see my other Miscellaneous stamps. View my 4-cent stamp on the USPS website. Click here for my Forever stamps.