Jim Larson Photography

While I was photographing all of the runners in the Christmas Run last Saturday, I spotted Santa and quickly went over to take a few photos. I wanted to get in close to to show the detail of his face, but not too close as to lose any of his clothes from the photograph. This one was just right.

I like the rosy cheeks and nose of this jolly old elf.

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!

The photo to the right was captured at a wooden boat show in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The photo has some great contrasts in both color and texture. Another contrast is the difference between old (boat) and new (line).  It is hard to tell that in this photo because the old boat is very well kept.

Also, notice the angles created by the dock line and the edge of the boat’s deck.  Everything brings your eyes back to the center of the photo.  Even when your eyes wander to the edge they follow one of the lines back in again.

This photo was taken underground in the Chicago subway system. Being from a smaller town out west, sites like this don’t show up in my portfolio very often. I liked the symmetry and the converging lines which gives the image depth.

This Christmas shot of Alle is actually a composite of 2 different shots. Alle and the blue blanket was the main shot and the background lights were a different image. The original shot did not have a very interesting background, so I masked it out and added a new background layer to the image. I shifted the color of the background image so that it would complement the main subject matter.