Jim Larson Photography

We were able to stop by “the foot bridge” to take the winter version of the image that was shown in my last post. I tried to remember just where I was standing and where I had the center of the photo. It was close, but may have to try again next year.

It’s amazing to see the difference between the 2 shots with no leaves on the trees and the wood planks covered in snow.

Find the location for your 4 season shots and remember the details. Things such as time of day, focal length of the lens, aperture, focus point and where you were standing will help with constancy.

Idaho is a great place to live. One of the best parts about living here is that the seasons are all very well defined.

Sun Valley, in the south central part of Idaho is a favorite spot of ours in the winter season due to the great cross country ski trials in the area. As I write this, my wife and I are in Sun Valley enjoying the snow and our time together.

So, what does Sun Valley and snow have to do with this photo? Well, on a prior trip up here this last fall we took a little hike on a rainy day, venturing across a foot bridge that we normally ski across. The trees were just beginning to change colors and the dampness of the day enhanced their richness.

Just because it is raining, or snowing, or whatever “non-sunny” thing might be happening, take some photos anyway. If the location is someplace you frequently visit, take a photograph of the same subject from the same angle during each season of the year.  It could make a great 4 photo collection.

I’ll see about taking a photo of the same bridge with snow on it tomorrow.  That will be 2 of the 4 seasons complete for this subject. 

This image is one in a series I took while on San Juan Island. The effect I was looking for is the “starburst” which you can see as the lines radiating outward from the sun.

The aperture of a lens is made up of several overlapping blades that move in unison to each other to make a larger or smaller opening in the lens to allow more or less light into the camera. It is very similar to the iris in your eye. When it is bright out, your iris is small, when dark, it is large.

Where these blades overlap the light is diffracted and the rays appear. The smaller the aperture, the more pronounced the rays are.

This particular shot was when the very last rays of sunlight were peaking over the mountain which makes the starburst effect even more pronounced.

Read more about this effect at: Starburst Effect

Susan posted a comment about my last photo asking if had any examples of photos taken at different times of day. Here is an example that shows the “Golden Hour.” The photo on the left was taken at about 3 hours prior to sunset, so the sun was still about 30 degrees or so up in the sky. The one on the right was about 15 minutes prior to the sun setting.

I left the camera’s white balance setting on “sunny” for both photos so that you would be able to see the difference between the two. Had I tried to adjust it, the warmer color would not have been as noticeable but the softness of light would have remained. When the sun is near the horizon the light has a lot more atmosphere to go through which defuses it slightly and gives it the warmer color.

By the way, I did not make our dog Alle sit for 3 hours between shots.

As in the prior post, we are at the Pelindaba Lavender Farm on San Juan Island. Instead of photographing the nice lavender plants, I decided to photograph this rowboat next to their pond.

The water was like glass and it gave us a sense of calmness. Maybe it was still the scent of the lavender helping with that.

The time of day we were there is great for photography. It is what is referred to as the “Golden Hour” in which the light is softer and warmer than at other times of the day. This golden (or magic) hour is the first and last sunlight of the day.

Pick a familiar place and take a series of the same photo at various times of day. Be sure to get several during the golden hour. You will be amazed at the difference a few hours will make to the look of your photograph.

Near the center of San Juan Island is “Pelindaba Lavender Farm.” It is a fun place to visit and is open to the public. Not only are the views spectacular, but the aroma is very nice too.

We visited late in the day which gave some pretty nice shadows next to the plants.

There were so many good angles of the fields to shoot that it was hard to pick a favorite. Using a digital camera is nice because you can take as many pictures as you like and it doesn’t cost you any extra.

Here is a link to the the Pelindaba web page.

As you have probably already noticed from prior posts, we love boats. Here is a different perspective of a pair of dinghies taken at Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. Looking down on them let’s you easily see the contrasting shapes of the hulls.

When you are out taking photographs, let your eyes wander away from where you normally look. If I had not stopped and looked over the railing of the pier, I would not have seen this shot.

In the same part of the country as Anacortes (see prior post) is a place in the San Juan Islands called Orcas island. This is the same island where I shot the picture from the top of Mount Constitution shown in the post a few days ago.
On our way down from the top of the mountain we stopped to check out “Cascade Falls” which was just a short hike from the road. The forest is very thick up in this part of the world and the foliage is beautiful which can be seen in the image to the right. This waterfall is no more than 15 feet high, but it was a great sight to see.

When taking an image of a waterfall, you can get a very interesting effect by slowing the shutter down just a bit to cause the water to take on the illusion of angel hair. The shutter speed in this one was 1/6 of a second. It was a bit longer than I would have liked, but due to the darkness under the forest canopy, this was as fast as I could shoot.

Take the tripod with you the next time you are out shooting a waterfall or stream. Try various shutter speeds from 1/4 to 1/60 of a a second and notice the difference.

I’m not the only photographer in our family. In a recent trip to Anacortes, Washington, my wife grabbed the camera and had me play a part in a wall mural.

These murals are all over town. Some of them are of just a single person, others show a group like this one.

It’s kind of funny how they all the other people just stood there watching as a stranger worked on their car.

I guess they weren’t going anywhere. 

The highest point in the San Juan Islands is called Mount Constitution on Orcas Island which reaches to 2,409 feet above the sea. The last time we visited, the sky was very clear and we just sat and watched the world below us go by. Looking down, I saw this sailboat all by itself heading to its next anchorage.

To compose the shot, I put the sailboat at the bottom left at the 1/3 point from that corner. This gives the boat room to travel in the viewer’s mind as they project where it is going.

Keep this in mind for any moving subject. You don’t want your subject to immediately hit the edge of the image as it travels in your mind.

Another composition element that is in play here is what is called “negative space.” It might be a baseball player alone in a large expanse of grass, a small image of a skier in a large amount of snow, or in this case, a small image of a boat in a large body of water. The idea is to either make the subject (the boat in this case) look small, or the rest of the photo (the water) to look large.