La Jolla Cove & KPBS

It's been a busy holiday season. I've had a few oppportunities to get out and shoot and one of my favorites was a super low tide day at La Jolla Cove. The tide was almost a -2 which is really low and there were lots of things exposed near the water as a result. The first shot was featured by KPBS on their blog page.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://blogs.kpbs.org%2Findex.php%2Fculturelust%2Fcomments%2Fsan_diego_weekend_the_midwinters_low_tides_polaroid_sunset_and_more%2F"




I had just picked up my new Canon 5d Mark 2 but didn't have the batteries charged yet when I came on this scene. So...I shot this with my 40D and my 10-22 lens....always a good combo. I didn't have my tripod with me...party foul...but decided to try and hand hold a bracketed shot for an HDR. I guess it all worked out in the end. Here is another shot of the low tide day.


I've been doing lots of portraits lately. It's always a fun family shot when you can do it at the beach and not a studio. Below are a couple from this week.


I can't wait for the holiday break. Time to break out the new 5D and capture God's beauty!

Give Clean Water

Our Fiji trip was a great success. We installed 405 clean water filters in 6 different Fijiian villages in 4 days. It was very fulfilling seeing apple juice colored water that came from a well, turned into clean drinking water, simply by pouring it through our water filters. Over 2000 people in Fiji are now drinking bacteria free water every day!

We're already planning our next trips. We'll take 3 or 4 in 2009 and hope to do it on a full-time basis soon. It was very clear that this pilot program was just the beginning of a world changing idea!

I was busy leading this project so I didn't have much time for photo opps. One of these trips I'll stay longer and just take photos around the islands.

Once I returned home, I was really eager to

shoot some new stuff. I took a few shots of the Oceanside Pier this week, and some of Buckaneer Beach in Oceanside. I hope you enjoy them.

Canon 40D with Canon 10-22 lens.

Back to Fiji

I'm headed back to Fiji this Saturday to take a team of 36 people on a mission trip to provide clean water filters to 6 complete Fijiian villages. We're installing water filters that remove 99.99% of all bacteria and protozoa from any water source. In 4 days, over 2,000 people will now drink clean water every day! This is the beginning of a new project called "Give Clean Water."

Photo opps will be limited as I'm running the team, but surely there will be some. Even if I didn't take one photo, this trip would be amazing! It's not often that one has the opportunity to change lives and villages in such a dramatic way.

Here are a few shots from my last trip in August. See you when I get back!

Back after a long break

It was a busy summer. My wife and I celbrated our 25th anniversary in Alaska on a cruise, and I went to Fiji for a clean water project. Both trips gave me a shot at some new pics. Both places were beautiful....in different ways.








I will head back to Fiji in a few weeks to install
over 400 clean water filters in houses from families who currently drink bacteria filled water on a daily basis. I'll be leading a team of 36 people on this trip. Just think...in 4 days, over 2000 people will now have clean water to drink every day!

This moose shot was a lot of fun. We were just getting in a boat to go look for Bald Eagles when this moose jumped in the river for a swim. We took off and caught up with it for some fun close up shots.

Alaska is amazing. If you ever get a chance to go, you should!

My website was just updated with new photos from Fiji and Alaska. You can find it at http://www.tropicalphotosbylarson.com/

Enjoy

Vacation Time!

I'm celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary this coming week. My wife and I are headed off to Alaska for our first cruise. I can't wait as I've heard it's an amazing place for photography! We have 2 photo wildlife excursions booked which should be awesome!



This past week I got to do a photo shoot for a web developing company. They were looking for a shot of the San Diego skyline with an "artsy" flare. Sounded like a job for an HDR shot. Turned out they liked it and bought it. It was a lot of fun! Here is the shot.


Hopefully I'll have some fun Alaska shots to post soon. I've also got August and October Fiji trips coming up. More on that later.

Ask Permission

Sometimes you just have to ask. I saw this guy coming out of the water. I was snapping some shots from this position. He was 30 yards out of my shot. I approached him and asked if I could take his picture. He said yes, so I asked him if he would move over to where I was. Again, he said yes, and so I took a few shots. The light was cool that night and so I bracketed 3 shots to get this capture. I find that most people will let you take a shot of them if you are polite and none threatening. Creepy won't get you anywhere!





Then there was this guy. His name is Miguel and he is one of my favorite people in Mexico. I go there quite a bit with an organization called Amor Ministries. They facilitate house building groups in Mexico. Miguel is a goat herder and lives by one of Amor's campgrounds. You can see him most late afternoons riding his bike around herding the goats. I saw him last night from a distance, honked my horn, and he came riding up to me.

We talked for a minute, then I asked him if I could take his picture. I took one of him a while back and framed it for him as a gift. He said he still has it in the trailer he lives in.

He used to wear glasses with one regular lens and another cracked sunglasses lens. Notice he's wearing two pair of glasses. I gave him the ones on the bottom layer. He said his eyesight keeps getting worse so he layered another pair on top of the ones I gave him. I guess that's one way to increase your perscription strenth!

Again, make friends....be polite....and ask permission and you can get some cool shots. Have fun!

Favorite Photography Tools

People have been asking me a lot lately about how I process my photos. "How did you do that?" is something I hear a lot. Well, I decided I'd share some of my favorite photography tools with you.

My camera gear:
Canon 40D

My favorite landscape lens:
Canon 10-22

Software I use:
I wish I could say I was a CS3 user, but I only use Photoshope Elements. It seems to do what I need it to do.

I almost always shoot in RAW and bring that into Adobe Lightroom, THE best RAW processing software out there in my opinion.

The best Photoshop plug in by FAR!!!
Neat Image........it is noise reduction software that really takes your photos up a notch in quality.
http://www.neatimage.com/

I also have a plugin from Tiffen called... DFX
It's a digital filter software package with lots of cool and practical filters. Just like you'd screw on to your camera... only in post-processing form. It's a great value if you like to use filters.

A lot of my photos are made using HDR software called Photomatix.
This software is awesome and quite fun. The basic premise of HDR is that you take 3 RAW shots using different exposures......one at -2.....one at 0.....and one at 2 (you can use your own favorite exposure settings).
If you have an SLR camera, you can set it to auto bracket these 3 shots. If you don't know what auto bracketing is, pull out your manual and read up on it. It's really quite easy.
Photomatix will take those three differentyly exposed shots, and combine all the best elements of each into a beautiful image. Of course you have to mess with the controls in Photomatix and actually take good shots for it to shine, but it's worth a free download for you to experiment with.

That's about it. Hope you have fun trying all these tools out, and hope your photography brings lots of happiness to your life.

Postcard Wedding

I had the priviledge of shooting a wedding recently. The bride...well you take a look. She was stunning! The wedding was at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego and the day was perfect. It was a 5pm wedding, so after the ceremony we wanted to take some shots as the sun was setting. The sky was amazing that day....puffy clouds and blue sky. It was a super fun day with lots of great photo opps. Nicole, the bride, smiled all day. Both she and Duane, her husband had a blast that day...me too!

La Jolla Cove Underwater Park

It was another Monday photo shoot day. Mondays are my days off so I always look for somewhere to go. I headed off to La Jolla Cove, a favorite place of mine. On the way, I looked to the right and I saw a sign that looked like it was from the City of San Diego. I parked my car and walked around the corner and sure enough....it was a city park. This one was called Underwater Park. This park was on the cliffs above a favorite San Diego diving and snorkeling spot, hence the term...Underwater Park.

First thing I saw was this awesome purple flowered plant....in someone's driveway! I can't believe people get to live on this cliff with this view! I decided to stop for my first shot of the day. I took 3 different exposures and used HDR to get this shot. I was inches away from the purple plant and I used my Canon 10-22 lens on my 40D. I shot this at 10mm.

Next, I found a trail that wrapped around the cove and came across these wild daisies. They were super beautiful. I dropped my tripod down to about a foot and a half off the ground and put it right in the middle of the daisies. I shot this one at 10mm too. The view was very nice. The pollen was crazy! Next time I'll bring the antihistomine! I took several more shots around the cove....all-in-all....a great San Diego morning!

HDR Kick

I've really been on an HDR kick the last couple of weeks. The flowers are blooming everywhere and the sunsets have been awesome. The combination has been a lot of fun. Here are a few shots from the last week. I'd love to get your feedback on any of them.

Here is a shot from the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.

Here is one from the Scripp's Pier in La Jolla. This is a research pier for the Scripp's Institute of Oceanography.

And finally....a shot from La Jolla Cove at sunset. What a fun week!

On The Hunt

I headed out for the Torrey Pines glider port again today. I love that place. When I got there, nobody was flying so I headed out. I ended up down at Scripp's Pier in La Jolla. I'd never been to this particular place. It was on the campus of the Scripp's Institute of Oceanography. There weren't any puffy clouds, but with an amber filter and HDR, I got a fun shot.

Laguna Beach Day Off

I had a great day off yesterday! My wife and I spent the day driving up the coast on California Hwy 1. 1st stop was Doheny Beach. We'd never been there but it was really nice and very well kept. We rented beach cruiser bikes and went over to Dana Point Harbor. Lots to see and fun!

Next stop was Laguna Beach. Wow...what a great place! The town has a nice vibe and the beach is really pretty! There is a cool lookout point there and I caught a couple of surfers dodging the rocks for a surf session.

After a Mexican food dinner, we headed back to the beach to catch the sunset. I snapped lots of photos. I did some bracketing shots and got some cool HDR images from them. Then the sun went down. Don't think the show is over after the sun sets. Long exposure shots can produce some cool results. I love experimenting with these. Especially when I'm at a beach with rocks and surf. Here is one of those shots. I set my exposure bios at -2 and took this at 4 seconds. You might try a neutral density filter to block more light if you want to use a longer shutter speed. Of course, you have to use a tripod for this.

Breaking It Down!

My nephew just graduated from Marine Corps boot camp last week. The family was all together and were so proud of Kyle! At the beginning of graduation, the Marine Corps band came out and played. They are some of the best musicians around and we got to catch them in a rare, non-stoic moment, as they cut loose for a song. What a fun time watching them clown around! Another one of those "when you least expect it" moments.

A Quick Visit To Torrey Pines Glider Port

I was visiting a friend of mine in the hospital yesterday. It was really close to the Torrey Pines glider port in La Jolla. Good thing I take my camera everywhere I go. After my visit, I made my way to the glider port, just before sunset. What a great place to take photos! I could have stayed for hours. Unfortunately, I only had 15 minutes to snap away, but managed to grab several keepers. I can't wait to go back for a longer session. I'm constantly reminded of how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place.

Welcome Everyone!

I'm just getting going on this blog. I hope to keep you up-to-date with everything going on in my photography world. Many of you have asked questions about the photography gear and software I use, as well as places I've traveled for my shots. I'll post those topics and more!

Feel free to ask questions, and please visit my website at: www.tropicalphotosbylarson.com.
I'd love it if you would sign my guest book..."e-newsletter" button. I'm working on a free screensaver to send to those who sign it.

It's super fun to share photography with all of you!
Darrel