Jim spent most of his time post-processing the Sept 7th Harvest Moon rising under/over the Coronado Bridge. When the moon first rose above the horizon, the ambient blue hour light and moonlight were pretty well balanced. Later, as the moon rose, the brightness of the moon required compositing a darker moon photo with a bridge image. He briefly demonstated a new (to him) Photoshop layer blending technique that helped feather the moon’s edge with the brighter moonrays.
For storytelling and still life images, he shared images from the Oceanside Museum of Art Fabulous Fabric exhibition. Combining several ‘storytelling’ images of the locale, plus detailed images of some art displayed.

Jim shared recent images from the San Diego Fair and a recent trip to Sequoia National Park. Because of past images from Sequoia NP being rather dull, he experimented with using a R72 infrared filter. This filter brings out the character of sunlit foliage and is great to use during midday sunlight.
He also ventured out to catch the moonrise over Mt Ecclesia in Oceanside. Last month, the marine layer blocked the moonrise so he tried again in July. The skies were free of marine layer, but the best images had some clouds in front of the moon. This darkened the moon enough to balance the exposure between the dome structure and the moon.

Jim’s photography has been pretty eclectic lately, but he thinks of the themes when approaching making photos. Some techniques like selective color are done post-processing. But he does pursue street photography with themes like repeating colors – none lately. Here are the images he shared this month:

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.