Category Archives: Photography

Photography by Richard X. Thripp: flowers, sunsets, water drops, still life, and more.


Photo: The Graceful Flag

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The Graceful Flag — a United States flag keeping still on a windless day

The stars and stripes fly low on a windless day. There was a nice background of clouds, so I shot this of the flag from the ground. I placed the pole off-center a bit, as that’s more appealing to the eye.

I added some contrast and color through curves.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/800, F7.1, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-12T11:14:07-04, 20080612-151407rxt

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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: The Sun-Kissed Rose

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The Sun-Kissed Rose — a pink rose under the noon sun

A bright pink rose under the noon-day sun. This is normally the worst time to take pictures; the sun was directly overhead. But it didn’t turn out half-bad here; all the light is on the flower, so the background is dark, and the petals are nicely highlighted. It does reveal the defects in the rose, but that gives an air of honesty and truthfulness… right? :grin:

There was a lot of dirt on this rose; small specks, but annoying still. I spent a lot of time with the spot healing brush in Photoshop to take them out. Next was to add contrast and blacken the background, and then I got the finished photo you see here.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/640, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-04-23T12:37:07-04, 20080423-163707rxt

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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: The Explosion

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The Explosion — the world pops using zooming

This is a cool effect called zooming. While the photo is exposing and the shutter is tripped, you zoom the lens while keeping the camera steady. That way, the middle of the frame is sharp but the edges have cool motion blur. I used it here on some trees in my yard, and at the bottom you can see our clothes line (we avoid the dryer to save energy). It looks like the world is exploding!

Read more about the technique in How to Use Zooming for Explosive Photos.

Since the zoom effect is in-camera, there wasn’t much to edit here. I just added contrast and toned the colors a bit.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/8, F14, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-04-20T18:30:51-04, 20080420-223051rxt

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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: The Sibling Flowers

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The Sibling Flowers — A red flower and a white flower together

A pair of flowers; one white, one deep red. I shot this at the garden section at Wal-Mart; the flowers were already close together, but I moved them closer. It’s a good combination. I got as close as my lens would focus to cut out the background.

I under-exposed compared to my camera’s meter on purpose, as it was blowing out the whites in the auto-exposure mode. In Photoshop, I desaturated everything, but left color in the red flower and a bit of green in the leaves. I didn’t go all the way to black and white, as I feel the green adds to the mood. Then, it was just a matter of darkening everything and adding in some contrast. I also cloned out distracting highlights at the top and burned the corners slightly.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-05-04T18:54:55-04, 20080504-225455rxt

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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: The Sky’s Mirror

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The Sky's Mirror — blue raindrops from a stormy sky, on a glossy window

These raindrops were on the back window of a friend’s car, after the rain (appropriately). This was as close as I could get with my 50mm lens; I put the focus right in the center, so it fades out toward the edges. I liking how the reflections of light and clouds in the background turned out. You can see an outline of each drop on the underside of the window below, which is also interesting.

This is the spiritual successor of The Sky’s Ceiling and possibly Crystal Rain; check them out to see how my ideas are evolving.

The blue colors were largely fabricated. I darkened the photo and added contrast for effect.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/400, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-05-22T17:05:05-04, 20080522-210505rxt

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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: Color and Light

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Color and Light — the morning sun shines on refrigerator magnets

These are magnets that are holding up 4*6 copies of my photos on the refrigerator. The sun shines through the window in the morning, lighting them up like this. I didn’t notice it before (not usually up in the mornings), but I had to snap this when I saw it.

I toned down the blue channel while adding to the red channel, and darkened a bit.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/50, F5.6, 55mm, ISO400, 2008-05-30T07:39:13-04, 20080530-113913rxt

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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: The Prison

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The Prison — the evil chain link fence

The prison is all in your mind… unless there’s a fence. This is on the campus at my school; behind it is a lot of new construction, though it’s blurry here because of the shallow depth of field. Snapped this in the evening; I like the pattern of chain-link fencing, and this seems like a good angle to shoot it from. Enjoy, and don’t be imprisoned!

I added vignetting and contrast, and desaturated for a cold look.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-02T18:20:03-04, 20080602-222003rxt

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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: Twilight Palm

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Twilight Palm — a palm tree in the dark

A palm tree at dusk. Shot this while walking around the campus on break from my class in precalculus algebra. The patterns of darkness between the clouds caught my eye, so I walked far enough away so the palm tree was in the middle of the bright patch.

I went for cooler tones with this one, and added contrast without having the dark clouds go all the way black. Nothing fancy here.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/2000, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-04T19:04:19-04, 20080604-230419rxt

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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: The Abandoned Baseball

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The Abandoned Baseball — the game is over, and the ball forgotten

The game is over, and the ball, forgotten. I found this on the ground outside the baseball field at the park. I moved it to where the grass was more brown (no one waters it), laid in the dirt, and shot this. I used a really large aperture — F1.6, so just the front of the baseball would be in focus, but nothing else, so the subject would seem singled out. I couldn’t even go down to F1.4, because I was maxing out with a 1/4000 second shutter speed.

Fun editing here. I cloned out the sky in the back, added contrast, and darkened a lot, for a (you guessed it) dark look. Before doing this, I used highlight recovery in Adobe Camera RAW, and burned in the highlight on the ball. It was a bit over-exposed, but only a little detail is lost.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/4000, F1.6, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-05T16:08:38-04, 20080605-200838rxt

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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: The Speedy Train

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The Speedy Train — a clear train in a blurry world

I was waiting for this quick-moving train to pass, so I took a picture of it, moving the camera with the this car as I exposed the image. It took me 30 tries, but I got this good one. To get a slow shutter speed, I closed way down to F22. Panning is a good technique; you should try it!

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/13, F22, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-05-13T17:08:44-04, 20080513-210844rxt

Source image. I think there’s some dust on my sensor, but I’m not going to try removing it because it only shows up at small apertures like F22 here. I cloned it out and added some nice colors and contrast. The sky is over-exposed, but I don’t mind it here; seems to match the movement of the train somehow. :sunglasses:

Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image.

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