Photo: The Coy Girl

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

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.

Stock: The Quill Pen

The Quill Pen — a faux quill pen on black

A ballpoint pen with a decorative quill against a black sheet. At the bottom-left is a book with yellowed pages, which would be perfect for using the pen in.

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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.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/160, F3.2, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-04-19T19:43:37-04, 20080419-234337rxt

Photo: Modern Architecture

Modern Architecture — a diagonal of a building against an orange sky

The side of the photography building at Daytona Beach College, with my camera turned to the side. The sun was right behind the building, which provides the gradation of brightness. The structure looks like it has a chunk taken out in the middle, but that’s how they build ’em nowadays.

The orange—I made the orange, there was no orange. I added vignetting and upped the contrast. It looks good now, like a sunset or deathly blanket of clouds.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/320, F8, 22mm, ISO100, 2008-03-07T14:35:59-05, 20080307-193559rxt

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Photo: Rose of Purity

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

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

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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Photo: Autumnal Leaves

Autumnal Leaves — the leaves of autumn are about to fall

The leaves of autumn come out. Took this in my yard last fall (2007); the tree always has sublime colors; though not vivid reds and oranges, there are stately reds and browns. This is wide-angle to show how big the maze of branches and leaves is, giving a sense of awe. The dark leaves at the corners help bring your eyes to the center.

No spot editing was needed; I did some simple contrast enhancements to bring out colors and tones.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/640, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2007-09-23T11:30:30-04, 2007-09-23_15h30m30

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Photo: Flowers of Gold

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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Photo: The Stuccoed House

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.