This is an overhead light at Publix that resembles a streetlight. In this photo, it looks like a weird spaceship. I found the shape of the light interesting, so I pointed my camera up and snapped this. In Photoshop, I removed all color and added contrast so the background went to black.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1600, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-12T12:18:55-04, 20080712-161855rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

A pair of shoes, dangling from a power line. This line sweeps down across the road rather than being level. I thought the shoes made a nice silhouette, though I wasn’t considering that at the time. The blue sky is quite visible in the original. In Adobe Camera Raw, I pushed the contrast slider all the way to the right, which made the image look like this. I didn’t have to white out the background at all, since it was the brightest part.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1000, F4.5, …

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I’ve been playing the piano again recently. Found this song, Comptine d’un autre été: L’après-midi by a French composer, Yann Tiersen. It translates to “Nursery Rhyme of Another Summer: The Afternoon.” I wouldn’t have titled it that, but it’s an appealing melancholy song nonetheless.

The song is famous for appearing in the movie Amélie. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds interesting / thought-provoking.

It just took me two days to learn this, which is faster than normal. As soon as I abandoned the score and played it from memory, I was able to play …

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