Category Archives: Photography

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


Photo: The Yellow Symphony

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The Yellow Symphony — vivid flowers against a warm sky

Yellow flowers from an roofless flower shop; you can find good photos anywhere. I took this from a low angle, so you can’t see any people or products in the background; just the sky. There’s interesting stuff among the stems and flowers below, but most people just look at the flowers at the top.

I spent a while changing the colors; I was debating between cooler blue tones or warm red and yellow, finally choosing the latter after comparing. There was an out-of-focus flower that creeped into the bottom-right of the frame that I cloned out, and I applied contrast enhancements and a subtle glowing effect. I let the sky go to pure white and the shadowy jungle below the flowers to black, because those areas don’t deserve detail.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/1000, F4.5, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-06-08T14:23:26-04, 2007-06-08_18h23m26

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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: Rose of Orange

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Rose of Orange — beautiful orange petals decorated with raindrops

An orange rose with water drops; I took this at a Lowe’s flower shop. The bubble in the center is a droplet that looks to be floating; I didn’t use a dropper as this was after a storm.

The flower is a red hybrid-tea rose; I made the color shift by changing the white-balance setting in-camera.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/15, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-18T16:29:42-05, 2007-01-18_21h29m42

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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: Assimilation

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Assimilation — a lone red leaf in a sea of death

A bright-red leaf out-of-place in a field of sickly brown leaves. I happened upon this idea as I saw a red leaf amongst all the brown leaves in our yard, so then I went and found a better leaf and positioned it like this. It was rainy and overcast, so the lighting was lower contrast and a bit blue, which is fitting for this image.

This didn’t need much spot editing, but it did benefit from added contrast and a shift to cooler colors. I added red to the leaf and desaturated the background (just a tad) to make it stand out more.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/10, F7.1, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-08T14:07:05-05, 2007-01-08_19h07m05b

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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: Cherry Tomatoes

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Cherry Tomatoes — eight bite-sized tomatoes in a row

Cherry tomatoes that I arranged in a line. The yellow table makes a great background for red-colored still life. They look good enough to eat!

I cloned out the dirt that was on the tomatoes and table, removed background reflections and distractions, brightened the image, and added contrast.
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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/74, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-08-07T14:27:03-04, 2006-08-07_14h27m03

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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 Stuccoed House

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The Stuccoed House — a lit, yellow home at night, with three ghosts

A thirty-second exposure of my house at night, with the lights on. Our house has creatively applied stucco that is painted yellow, so it makes an interesting and reflective texture, particularly with the yellowish indoor lights. The ghostly figures are of me standing next to two windows and in the light behind the house; I stood still in each spot for eight seconds to achieve the effect (took four tries). I don’t own a proper tripod, so I used a step-ladder; it does well in a pinch.

For the glowing effect, I used a gaussian-blurred layer with soft-light blending in Adobe Photoshop CS3. Other than that, I added contrast and color, burned the sky, and dodged the ghosts.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 30″, F3.5, 18mm, ISO400, 2008-03-22T22:11:14-04, 20080323-021114rxt

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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 Green Vortex

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The Green Vortex — green leaves through a pinhole

Some leaves on a tree, through a rolled-up poster right in front of the lens. The reflections on the glossy paper inside make it look like a vortex… a vortex of doom, of course. Green and black are the colors of spring.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/160, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-02-29T12:19:33-05, 20080229-161933rxt

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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: Ashes and Embers

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Ashes and Embers — fiery red embers in a fireplace

Leftover embers in my wood-burning stove. The foreground is crumpled paper that didn’t burn thoroughly; makes for some interesting folds, colors, and patterns. There is still a bit of fire left in them.

I burned in the highlights a bit, made the colors redder, and added contrast. I was hand-holding the camera and the scene was dim, so I went up to ISO1600; the original is grainy. It’s nice grain, though, which I kept, though you can’t see it except at higher resolutions.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/30, F1.8, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-02-28T21:00:45-05, 20080229-020045rxt

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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: Golden Tapestry

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Golden Tapestry — a golden sun behind silhouetted branches

A golden sunset behind a mess of tree branches. Took this right across the street of my house. It’s the same location and type of tree as A Morning of Fog, but very different lighting.

Darkening and added contrast give this its feeling, though the original is more technically accurate.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/3200, F9, 55mm, ISO100, 2008-03-19T19:03:08-04, 20080319-230308rxt

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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 Camouflage

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The Sky's Camouflage — a cloudy car in nine colors

Reflections of a vivid sky on a black car. This is my new vision for Sky’s Camouflage; it started with the blue version in the center, and the others I digitally colored for this arrangement.

I’ve been trying this out on my bedroom’s wall for a while; looking at it everyday hasn’t annoyed me yet, so it must be good.

I increased contrast and saturation on the original (blue, center), and mixed up color channels for the eight variations.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/278, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-06-17T14:44:08-04, the-skys-camouflage-rxt

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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: Leafy Droplets 6

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Leafy Droplets 6 — liquid drops on an colorful orange leaf

An orange leaf decorated with water drops. It’s unconventional, but I decided to fade to white at the top of the frame, as though the scene is overwhelmed by fog. Like with Leafy Droplets 2, I changed the leaf to orange, though this photo is brighter and composed differently. This is on my point-and-shoot camera, as it focuses closer than the lenses I have for my DSLR.

I changed the colors to orange, added contrast, cropped, and dodged and blurred the top part so the photo fades to white.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/60, F3.5, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2008-02-24T10:49:51-04, 20080224-154951rxt

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More of the Leafy Droplets series.