Photo: Night Meets Day

Night Meets Day — sunlit leaves against a moonlit sky

Leaves from the American sycamore tree in my yard. This photo is with my new polarizing filter; I made the sky look as dark as possible with it, and put the moon in the frame to make the scene a cross between night and day. So the moon didn’t become a blurry white blob, I closed down to F18, so I increased the ISO speed to 800, but the grain works well here. So you have the sunshine of late afternoon, but the dark blue sky of a moonlit night.

Though the polarizer took care of making the sky dark, I added some contrast, toned down the colors of the leaves, and added heavy vignetting (darkening at the corners), to keep your eyes from wandering off the edge. I also brightened the moon a bit.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F18, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-04-11T18:15:36-04, 20080411-221536rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Bubble in the Sea

Bubble in the Sea — an ant, trapped underwater in an air bubble

These are some Loquat fruits that my Dad was washing off (for their cancer-fighting properties). When I looked at them, I saw this going on: an ant, trapped in an air bubble, with another ant outside the bubble, already drowned. The ant in the bubble was moving around, trying to escape. I ran to get my camera; used my small digicam, as it focuses this close while the lenses I have for my DSLR won’t, and captured this scene.

Ants are people too! Actually, they aren’t. They type here is red imported fire ant, which we have far too many of in Central Florida.

I removed some specks of dirt (can’t have dirt on my fruit), plus added contrast to liven things up. I burned in the corners slightly, and dodged the blue areas so they can better play off the yellow and orange bits.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/2, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2008-03-18T15:52:18-04, 20080318-195218rxt

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.