Jim shared images he took during the La Jolla Cove meet-up Feb 9th to photograph pelicans, osprey and cormorants. In February, these birds exhibit breeding behavior and colors. Quail and Black Cardinal photos were from a recent February Joshua Tree camping weekend. He also spent some time out in the cold, photographing the full blood moon lunar eclipse. It was partly cloudy but he was able to get intermittent photos during the cloud breaks.

Jim shared his favorites of 2024, some seen before but re-processed, and others that were overflow from previous meetings. Meaning, with the 10 image limit per meeting, these were ones that were cut for time.

I (Jim) had a busy 4 weeks since the last meeting. Wanting to catch the Oct 17-18 Supermoon and Comet A3, I traveled inland for the weekend to find clearer skies. Unfortunately, the Santa Ana Winds were howling Friday, causing extremely hazy conditions the first day of shooting the Supermoon and comet. Day 2 was spent photographing Salton Sea’s Bombay Beach in the late afternoon & evening. This solo outing ended with photographing Comet A3 over Salton Sea after sunset. Day 3 started at the Palm Springs Air Museum – a great place for plane photos. Then I headed to Joshua Tree National Park for astrophotography, hoping to catch the Milky Way with Comet A3. It was a very enjoyable & successful 3-day photography trip.
The Dia de los Muertos Nov 2nd Old Town San Diego celebration was another fun photography outing. I enjoyed the meet-up although I wandered off in search of images (and missed the margarita break). One thing about joining other photographers on such an outing and separating, is you get to see their perspective of the same event. After viewing their images, I feel I need to zoom in and capture more closer detailed portraits. I tend to include all the costume detail and really liked their tighter perspective. I shared 12 images but include a few more here. Astrophotos were taken with a Nikon Z8 & Z7II with 105mm f2.8, 50mm f1.8, 20mm f1.8, and 16mm f1.8 lenses. Salton Sea/Bombay Beach & Palm Spring Air Museum were taken with a Fujifilm XPro2 with 10-18mm Sigma f2.8 lens (15-27mm effectively).

Since I setup the themes, I tried to represent and share at least one image that fits. The hardest was artificial light – I hoped to get out and photograph some neon nightscapes but it didn’t happen. I did photograph some shows at night and dusted off my Panasonic point-n-shoot. It’s the only type of camera that is allowed in concert or show venues other than cell phones. Cell phones do a great job but to have an equivalent 500m lens helps get some tighter-in shots. Unfortunately, the slower lens aperature is not great for capturing fast action like Olympic gymnasts. But overall, I am happy with the results especially after post-processing noise-reduction.
I also included some AppArt photos: Brushstroke and Waterlogue are the apps I play with. Photo purist would balk at their use but I consider myself more of a visual artist. I’ll use whatever tools and software are available to me. One exception – completely AI-created images – that’s where I draw the line.
Other artificial light images are photos taken in Tokyo’s TeamLabs immersive/interactive art installations. The lighting effects were phenomenal and the photos cannot do them justice. This is a must-visit if you are in Tokyo.

Jim used the iPhone app Brushstroke to apply a illustration-style effect for his photos.