Jim Larson Photography

Today I was taking photos of all the runners at the local YMCA hosted “Camel’s Back Duathlon.” Most everyone had already finished and I was waiting for the next person to come across the line with no one in site. For the past 30 minutes I had been looking for a good candidate for a small modeling job. Most runner shots were captured head to toe and you could definitely tell what they were doing. I wanted to see if I could tell a story without showing the big picture, so I asked a woman waiting for her friends to finish the race to help me with an experiment. I had her stand just under the finish line banner with her head at just the right angle. Then I snapped a nice closeup of her face and her very reflective glasses.

Do you like the different way of telling this athlete’s story?

Thursday evening brought a lot of activity to downtown Boise at Park Center.  The YMCA sponsors an intermediate length triathlon to give those with not a whole lot of experience an opportunity to compete and to learn more about the sport.  There were several hundred athletes competing tonight despite the rain that was falling.  There were thunder storms forecasted, but fortunately, they never developed.

We had 3 photographers at the event.  One for each of the disciplines; swimming, biking and running.  It was my job to photograph the swimmers as each of them completed the swimming leg.

The photo for today shows the start of one of the swims when everyone was still rather close to each other.  The 320mm telephoto lens kind of compresses the image, giving the illusion that everyone is closer together than they really were.  But, it was still tight with swimmers getting hit and kicked (unintentionally) by their competitors.

If you want to peek at some of the 3,387 photos that were captured, please visit the following web page: IdahoSportsPics.com

What do you get when you strap a small surfboard to your feet, hook yourself up to a parachute and head to the lake on a windy day?  It’s the latest craze in water sports and is called “kite sailing.” Nearly every morning the wind is blowing very strongly at Lucky Peak dam just east of Boise.  What was once a place for a lot of wind surfers is now shared equally with these new kite sailers.  It is fun to see these guys and gals rip across the water at probably 20-30 mph.  Then, when it is time to make a turn, they pull the appropriate ropes going to the kite and they get pulled up into the air, some 20 or so feet.  It is fun to watch and I’m sure fun to do. For now, I’ll be content with watching.

On Saturday, the local YMCA held an annual event called the Famous Idaho Potato Marathon.  This year there were over 2,000 participants. Knowing this ahead of time, my partner and I made sure we had plenty of flash cards and batteries for the cameras and headed out on a great Spring day.  The weather was perfect and everyone seemed excited to be participating.  Here is a shot of one of the marathoners showing the intensity of the event on his face.  I can’t imagine doing this for 26.2 miles.

If you want to see some of the 10,000 images that we captured, you can visit IdahoSportsPics.com

Maybe I’m a little crazy, but hey, if I think I see a photo opportunity, I’ll try to get it.

This image was captured with my iPhone while cycling a few weeks ago.  I reached out with my left hand, pointed the lens in what I thought would be a pretty good direction and clicked the shutter.

The iPhone is not the easiest thing to hang on to, especially when some of your fingers are searching for the right place on the screen to push.  This was brought to light when I dropped it at work on a tile floor and part of the touch screen quit working.  I took it to the AT&T store, but it was 1 month out of warrantee, so ended up getting a new iPhone 3G to replace it. Now I have a faster connection to the internet and a great GPS built in.  I suppose you could call what happened a good, albeit expensive thing.

Hmmm.  I sure got off on a tangent, didn’t I?

Anyway, try a self portrait sometime.

A friend of mine and I take thousands of photos throughout the year at different athletic events.  These events are mainly running events, which is the subject of today’s post.  The Saturday before Christmas, the local YMCA puts on their annual Christmas Run.  This year there were over 1,800 participants in the 5K and 10K events. It was our job to photograph every person as they crossed the finish line.

This photo shows the intensity of one of the 10K runners.  The depth of field of the is fairly shallow, giving a nicely blurred background that helped to bring out the subject.  The other technique I used (in Adobe’s Lightroom software) was to add a vignette to the corners of the photo.  It is quite easy to do by adjusting a slider to either make the corners darker or lighter.  I lightened it which kind of gave the photo a mysteriously foggy effect. 

Merry Christmas!

Earlier this year, several of us from where I work were given the opportunity to spend a few days in Chicago.  One of the things we were able to do while there was to attend a Cubs game.  It was the first time I had ever attended a major league baseball game and I had a blast.  Of course I took my camera to get a few shots.

The lighting was interesting after the sun went down, as the field was quite bright, but the stands were very dark.  A situation like this would fool a light meter if I did not pay attention to what was happening.

To get the correct exposure I put the camera in manual mode and zoomed in on the field, adjusting the camera for the “field” exposure.  When I zoomed back out to compose the shot the light meter in the camera said I did not have enough light.  That was okay, as I knew what I wanted to see in the final image.

Next time you have high contract lighting situations, try a trick like this and see what you come up with.

Keep on shooting!

I got to be on the other side of the camera today. A good friend of mine (Scott Rasmussen) and I shoot a lot of sporting events together and post the photos for sale on IdahoSportsPics.com to the participants. Today I was riding, so he was the shooter.

This particular event was the 36th annual Bogus Basin Hillclimb which is a bike race starting in Boise, Idaho and ending 15 miles later and over 3,000 feet higher at the Bogus Basin ski resort.  This was my 25th year to personally participate in the event.  

Nice job on all the great shots, Scott.

This photo was taken at Lucky Peak Reservoir during the 2008 running of the YMCA Spudman Triathlon. I had on the 70-200mm lens and set it at 200mm to get in close.

I like to take a series of images when I shoot swimmers. The water in each frame will be quite different from each other and usually one stands out as the best one.

The wave the swimmer was creating with his head was what intrigued me about this image.

A few weeks ago I was shooting photos of all the participants of a local triathlon.  The first leg of the event was an open water swim of about 1.5 miles.  It’s fun to watch these guys and gals go through the water like fish.

I enjoy shooting the swimming leg of the event because the splashing of the water gives additional interest to the image.

Here is a shot of a swimmer making some very power strokes through the water.  I used a 200mm lens and shot it at a fairly large aperture (f4) to slightly blur the life guards in the kayaks which helped to keep the viewers eyes going to the main subject.  I also placed myself close to the surface of the water to give a sense of really being there.