John W Jacobsen Photography

The September desktop background image is here! Running water is a necessity and the streams of Colorado have plenty of running water! This months image is from El Dorado Canyon State Park – also located near Boulder, CO. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!

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We were met with overcast weather when we awoke this Independence Day, and with it our plans to go in to the mountains exploring were scuttled. So to make the best of the cold and dreary morn, I baked some blueberry muffins!

My wonderful wife knows how much I like blueberries and she had just happened to pick up a pint at the local super-mart. Armed with fresh blueberries, I baked up a batch of six jumbo-sized muffins. During the baking process, I realized that I didn’t have any decent pictures of one of my favorite food items so I broke out the camera and the 105mm Macro lens.

Surprisingly, taking photos of food is actually pretty easy. I placed the muffins on a wood cutting board and placed them near a window with beautiful natural light. I set my white balance to ‘cloudy’ and fired off about 75 shots. One thing to look out for is shadows. If the light coming into the scene from the window is harsh or overly bright, you will want to use a inexpensive reflector set up opposite the window to help even out the shadows. If you don’t want to spend the money on a reflector, you can use everyday items such as a piece of white paper or some aluminum foil. As the name implies, you are trying to reflect some of the light back in to the photo. Trust me – it really does make a difference. In this case however, using a reflector wasn’t necessary because of it being such an overcast day.

Once I got these images on the computer, I noticed that the cloudy white balance (5600 Kelvin on my D300) was a little bit too warm for my liking so I dialed the temp down to about 4700 Kelvin. Being able to change the temperture of the image is one of the biggest benefits of shooting in RAW vs JPG/TIFF Fine. I’m so happy with the end result that a batch of these are going to make their way to the Fotolia stock photography agency.

Finally, the best part about food photography is once you’ve snapped off all of the shots that you want, you can eat some seriously delicious food and after all, isn’t that what holidays are all about?!? =)

The July desktop background image is here! This is a long exposure night time shot of downtown Denver on a stormy, summer night. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!

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[UPDATE: The full set of images from the shoot are available here (requires Flash)]

My friends at Boulder Motorsports have been busy building a new bike for the 2010 racing season and they asked if I would like to come take some shots of it for them. Umm. Yeah! The F042 is a custom made kit bike that is truly a work of art. If you are a gear head, you can read more about it here.

I got to the shop at 6AM this morning and Brian Sharp was already hard at work re-building an engine for one of his Californian customers. I set up my gear and tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. Once Will Neville arrived to provide some creative direction and assistance, we got to work. My idea for the first two shots were that this truly is an unveiling of the great work that BMS does. I thought it would be interesting to have a silhouette and some darker, almost flirtatious images of the shape of the F042. As is normally the case, the first 15 or 20 shots were a lot of trial and error but I started dialing in the look I was going for and thanks to my trusty RadioPoppers, I was able to nail it.

Once the darker shots were done, we cranked up the lights and started getting some good product shots of the bike and some of the custom parts that BMS used to create the F042. I haven’t processed all of the images yet, but I can tell from a quick glance that I think that I was able to capture the craftsmanship of Brian and his team.

After we got done documenting the F042, I had an opportunity to ask Brian how this bike does on the track. He response: “it’s been on the podium every race we’ve entered!”. So not only does it look great it’s also a rocket on the track! It was an early start to the day and definitely more work than I would have thought, but hopefully I will be able to give Brian some ‘podium’ shots of his latest creation!

The May desktop background image is here! This image was taken at Sprague Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Colorado. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!

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The April desktop background image is here! Sadly, life got in the way this month. I had intended to include an original image this month, but between inclement weather, work and life in general, that didn’t happen. So, I went into my archives and grabbed one of my favorite shots – Latourelle Falls in the Columbia Gorge located just outside of Portland, Oregon. Click on your monitor resolution below to view/save the image to your local computer. Enjoy!

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As I was driving to work on New Years Eve, I couldn’t help but notice how spectacular to moon looked as it was slowly sinking over the Flatirons. I made a mental note to check the weather and find some time to try to capture the moment. As luck would have it, New Years Day looked like it would be a good opportunity to try!

I woke up early on Jan 1 and had a cup of coffee before heading out into the Colorado winter. I loaded up my gear and was on the road by 6:15AM – too early for a vacation day, but if you want to get ‘the shot’, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I got to my destination and there were already eight other photographers there with the same idea as me!

I quickly found a suitable spot and set up my gear. After a couple of trips back to the truck to grab my remote shutter release and spirit level, I started shooting. My fingers quickly froze in the sub 20 degree weather but I was on a mission – I wanted to get the shot in my minds eye on digital film. I spent about 30 minutes trying different settings, angles and focal lengths. The sun was starting to come up by this point and it was time to pack up and find another location. I wouldn’t really know if I got the shot I wanted until I viewed the images on my computer back home, but I felt secure in knowing I did as good as I could have at the time.

As I was driving towards Boulder, I noticed how interesting the Flatirons themselves looked in the early morning glow so I headed down Baseline and found a turn-off overlooking the mountains. It was starting to warm up a little so I felt safe that I wasn’t going to lose a finger on the first day of the new year. It was getting close to 8:30 by this point and I know my wife was back home tearing down Christmas decorations so I loaded up the car and headed back home.

I finally found a chance to view the images on my computer close to noon. Overall, I was very pleased. If the rest of 2010 is as good as the first day was, I’m going to have a very good photographic year!