Decide before you have to Decide...

I had to post this one, along with a little bit about life...


We spend some time in the mountains today, taking an easy monday morning start to the week. As I realized after this last trip to the mountains, I was reminded of something:

We often toil and toil after that which we seek after. Spending hours and much effort, thinking, "I'll be done next week", or, "as soon as this project is done, I'll have some free time to make some time". Well, if I have learned anything over the last year, Its that you have to have made the decision before hand, what you will do when the decision time comes. Booking it in the calendar is step one. Things always come up, they always do. But those who make the decisions ahead of time will have no problem WHEN those decisions come up. Making time to relax, spending time with their wife, family, children, friends. I know that there are many things that are going on in my life, but I do know, that when I decide to do something big, every other smaller decision will be already decided. My smaller decisions conform to my Big decisions. They always do. And I have to decide BEFORE its time to decide in the situation. I love getting away. It always ground me.

Yosemite Vacation

Ok, so Tim Halberg got on my case about not posting images from Yosemite, which we were bummed he and his wife were not able to join us for our annual trip up there, but here are some of the highlights. I did see TWO bears, here is one image of the bear. Can I just say how much i LOVE Yosemite! if you have not been, you HAVE to go, its one of those "must do" trips. Any recommendations for other trips out there?










Here is a video from the top of Yosemite Falls!

Yosemite Bound!!!

I will be in yosemite with my wife and family until friday the 30th on vacation. This is our 26th annual trip up there for an entire week. Have a great week, Caio!

Yosemite Vacation + Shooting

We just got back from one of my favorite places in the world. Yosemite National Park. Here are just a few of the places we went. I have been to yosemite more than 35 times in my life, during every season, and its so amazing how the park changes, and how much there is to do there. From hiking, to snowshowing, camping, fine dining at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel, to rafting, climbing, bbq, laying out on the river beaches, Its a majestic place that is a tradition in our family to spend a lot of time there. Peaceful for a family and rugged enough for the enthusiast, yet romatic for a couple. There is a chapel in yosemite and they have weddings up there that are amazing, year round. I am going to post tomorrow photos from the engagement session and the "day after shoot we did". I highly recommend that you travel to yosemite and spend some time at this park.

Big Sur

My wife and I were able to get away thursday and friday to big sur, (on our way up to San Francisco for a wedding this weekend) the most beautiful stretch of coast in the world. Here are some of the photos from Sand Dollar beach, and then from our breakfast @ Big Sur River Inn, which has a restaurant right on the river, you can actually sit and have food/drink with your feet soaking. If you want to go during the summer months, it books up 2-3 months in advance. Saturday we had our wedding and i will post some highlights from that later today or tomorrow!

Sunset in Oahu Time release

This is from a few weeks ago, but I thought that you should see how beautiful the North Shore of Hawaii is, scroll down to previous posts from hawaii from october 06 and jan 07 to see more images, or go to the link on the right side of the blog and click on "Mike Larson Photography Fine Art". let me know what you think!.

Friends @ wppi

I just got these images off my wife's camera, and i wanted to share, the top image is the SLO boys from [b]eckers party at THEHotel, Jeff Newsom, and Eric Dungan from Big Folio.

Below pictured here is the big group of friends, celebrating Jen Manuele's birthday. Happy 25th Jen!



below, the Pool Sharks who dominated the competition @ the BLUdomain party, Thanks to my wife for documenting the funny photos you dont see here.


And the last image is the great Chris & Lynn Jaska , they are up in BC, an amazing couple, check out their stories if you have a time to catch up with them, they traveled all over BC backpacking doing stories on the nature there and trying to not get eaten by big bears. I know that sounds funny, but the stories are really great and their images are amazing!

WPPI 2007

One of the most beautiful things is being able to fly out of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, or Monterey to SF, LA, Vegas, or Sac in less than an hour. but canceled flights are a bummer, that means if you take the last flight of the day and it gets canceled and you have to be there in the morning, you have to drive at night. US Airways canceled on us and our annual trip to Vegas for WPPI , a conference for photographers. Thanks to my amazing bride, she drove most of the way and I was able to get some shut-eye so i could be ready for the day when i woke up when we arrived. Its always great to come out here to meet with friends from all over the country that sometimes we only see once a year.

So to recap the week, It was great to visit friends and hang out at WPPI this year at Ballys in Las Vegas. (Vegas on the strip is overload and once you get out of the town, its just like any other city) Well, The rooftop shoot we did on Wednesday at the Platinum Hotel with BLR Life Photography was a blast, there was about 100 photographers there at one time or another during the 2 hour shoot & talk. We had some brand new Vera Wang Vera Wang Dresses, and the sun came out and the wind died down and we got some amazing shots, I will put them online tomorrow (friday). Thanks for all those who helped put everything on, California Sunbounce and our Models Tala and Kasia, and the whole staff of BLR, and last but certainly not least is my wife Rachel.
Visit Tomorrow for a bunch of images from the shoots...

A city with many sides...

Today we spent the day with an amazing couple, and we roamed all over Upper Manhattan and Tribeca. Finishing up at The Odeon Restaurant. Even though it was 30 degrees with a wind chill that felt like 18, they had a great time, and the photos here show the results. Thanks to my friends Ali, Gregg, and Jennifer Davis, an up and coming photographer here in the city. We photographed them with Glenn's Digital Hasselblad H3d . What an amazing camera.

When your with friends, your at home...

New York can be a cold place, it can be a place where you can be all alone, it can also be a place where you are with friends and having a great time. Its such a blessing to meet friends when you travel. While traveling it's always fun to get out of the hotel room and meet new people, rather than stay in the hotel and only come out when you got your work to do. My friends in NYC - Glenn & Ali, are a great couple and so generous to let me stay at their place. here is a view from their balcony. We had a great day.