Tag Archives: beauty


Photo: Liquid Suspension

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Liquid Suspension — water droplets floating in a spider's web

Tiny raindrops, levitating in a spiderweb. Most people don’t realize it’s a spider’s web, but if you’re observant, you can figure it out from the stray dirt and threads. I shot this in January 2007 with my old Canon A620 (this is the first release here); I focused as close as it would go (one centimeter) for this, as the drops were really tiny. To increase the depth-of-field, I closed down to F7.1 (the range on the A620 is F2.8-F8). I kept taking photos after this, but disturbed the web mistakenly, causing all the drops to fall. This one, while dull at first, came to life with my editing. The reflections in the drops are my favorite element, each representing a microcosm of the world we know and love.

If you haven’t figured it out, spider webs aren’t pretty. There were pieces of dirt and dead bugs strewn in the web. My purpose as an artistic photographer is to present a realistic ideal of the world, through whatever means necessary. My job was to remove those, both from the web and the droplets’ reflections. I only did this in a couple; in the other droplets, I decided that the reflections pass for branches or leaves above or around the web. I used Adobe Photoshop CS2’s spot healing brush and clone stamp to take out the offending elements, while double checking that there were no smudge marks by making the image much darker using the Levels tool, followed by checking the integrity of the highlights. The last step was to crank the contrast into overdrive (curves), because the scene was really dull to start; it was a dreary, overcast day, after all. It all came together in the post-processing stage.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/320, F7.1, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-18T13:16:43-05, 2007-01-18_18h16m43

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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 Beautiful Country

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The Beautiful Country — a cloudy blue sky over a waterfront town

A town near the sea, with a blue sky overhead, filled with clouds and chemical trails. This is at one of the most beautiful locales in Florida; Oak Hill (scroll down), where the white pelicans congregate. This shot is from the peer overlooking Goodrich’s Seafood Restaurant, which you can see at the bottom-left.

After adding contrast, gradating the sky, and darkening the corners, this became The Beautiful Country.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/400, F8, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-03-05T13:41:17-05, 20080305-184117rxt

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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 Coy Girl

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The Coy Girl — a coquettish lady in sunglasses

A lady named Alicia, in a cute pose wearing sunglasses. This was an impromptu shoot at my college’s photography building; a white wall, wide aperture, and normal fluorescent lighting makes for a studio-like setting.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/100, F2, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-04-25T17:06:49-04, 20080425-210649rxt

Source image. I added contrast, a glow effect, improved her skin tones, and removed some blemishes. The blue clothes weren’t working out, so I changed them to golden-brown to match her hair. Using Photoshop’s color channels tool, I moved the blue and cyan selectors all the way to the right, which made the colors perfect.

Photo: Bubblegum Garden

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Bubblegum Garden — shiny pink flowers against a rich blue and white sky

I went to Lowe’s flower shop and started snapping photos as I sometimes do. I used my polarizing filter to get the rich blue sky, and waited for the sun to come out (the clouds were moving) to get this shot of these pink perennials. The clouds in the background make the shot; when I got down lower and only included blue sky, the background was too dull.

Bubblegum is pink, and this photo is like bubblegum pop for me, but in a good way.

Just some color and contrast enhancements, plus a light glow effect (by duplicating the image on a new layer in Photoshop, adding a gaussian blur, then choosing soft light blending between the two).
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/320, F6.3, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-04-23T13:19:11-04, 20080423-171911rxt

MarioGamer99 from deviantART fiddled with the source file; here’s his creation: Luminessence.

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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 Purity

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Rose of Purity — an isolated white rose

A white rose, floating on a background of white. I was going to have the backdrop as a bunch of other flowers, but decided to do something different. This is from my induction into Phi Theta Kappa; white represents purity (and black impurity?).

I was working in poor light for this, so I pumped up my camera’s sensor to ISO1600. The rose is very grainy, which serves as a conceptual counterpoint to the ideal of the title. You can see my idea (of the rose being the odd one out among the other flowers), but I abandoned that and instead made it the only item on a white canvas, in an almost creepy way (does the lack of boundaries scare you?).

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/80, F2, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-04-19T20:06:38-04, 20080420-000638rxt

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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.

Looking for more stock roses? Try these: Simplicity (pink), Implicity (yellow), Complicity (pink x2), and Rose of Orange.

Photo: Crystal Rain

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Crystal Rain — two blue raindrops suspended in the air

These drops are falling off my roof at my house. It was sunny out but still sprinkling. I got these two drops just as they were falling, with a nice, discreet background. The title is because they look like crystals (they’re shiny and reflective :grin: ).

I added contrast, sharpness, and color, and darkened the edges.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F5.6, 47mm, ISO400, 2008-04-05T18:20:56-04, 20080405-222056rxt

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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: Night Meets Day

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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: Yellow Sunshine

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Yellow Sunshine — sunlit yellow flowers mix with a vivid blue sky

Flowers with the sun behind them. I included the sun in the frame, but it goes to white or else everything else would be black. This was a great scene, especially for the deep blue sky and cloud formations that work together with the yellow flowers.

I added a blurry glow while keeping the grain in the sky as a counter-point to the soft flowers. The added contrast pushes the branches to black while keeping detail in the clouds (not the sun), but adds focus to the flowers. There’s more info in my short article, On Exposure.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/800, F8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-08-19T14:38:25-04, 2007-08-19_18h38m25

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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: Flowers of Gold

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Flowers of Gold — bright yellow flowers against a sunny blue sky

These are some golden-yellow flowers in my aunt and uncle’s yard. These were low to the ground; I had to lay in the grass to snap this, potentially exposing myself to pesticides and bugs. It’s worth it for my craft, of course!

I added a lot of contrast and brightened the sky. That was the hardest part, because I wanted the sky to be uniformly and realistically lightened, so I analyzed the dodging by setting the brightness level on the image to be very dark (with an overlay layer), and then looked for dark patches, which I’d dodge or clone out.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/3200, F2.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2007-11-12T14:37:44-05, 20071112-193744rxt

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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 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.