Jim Larson Photography

I love taking pictures in the fall season.  You can usually count on getting some very nice colors off of the changing foliage of trees and bushes.  The same day that I photographed the fall picture of the foot bridge (see March 27, 2008 post), we were driving toward Galena summit north of Sun Valley, Idaho and saw these nice colors.  It was also a rainy day which helped to bring out some of the richness of the leaves.

Someday, I would like to travel to the east coast of the country in the fall to see the thousands of square miles of trees all showing off their autumn colors.  It would be a photographer’s dream.

Sometimes when I am looking at boats, I look up. On this one I had to look way up. This is a mast on a sailing yacht and it made of carbon fiber. Think of carbon fiber as fiberglass, but instead of being made of glass fibers and resin, it is made up of carbon fibers and resin. It is very rigid, but very light in weight.

What does that have to do with photography? Not much, but it is kind of interesting. When you take a photo of something interesting, learn more about it. It makes for good conversation.

We were in a small chapel at a vineyard when I noticed a potentially cool image. I had but moments before taken a few pictures of the vineyard from outside, but there was nothing that exciting me about the images I was seeing. When I spotted the same vines looking out of the window I had to see if this one would work any better.

The first step was to step up to the window and to get the correct exposure. (This is similar to my February 29th, 2008 post.) I then stepped back to compose the image using the chapel window as a frame to the subject. This made for a much more interesting photograph.

One of our favorite past times is to walk the docks when visiting a marina.  Being sailors at heart, it is just a natural thing for us to do.  I always have a camera with me when we do this as I can be guaranteed I will see something nautical to shoot.

Sometimes I will look at the big picture and photograph an entire boat or at least a big piece of it.  Other times I like to compose a tighter shot to see some detail.  I like this particular shot because of the rich colors and the nice contrast between the wood, chrome, white and green colors.

When you are shooting details that are very white, be sure that you do not over expose the image or you will lose the detail in the whites.

Here is Alle’s April calendar shot. It is kind of a “dog’s eye” view.