Pink Flowers at Lowe’s, against a blue sky with contrails out-of-focus, sun shining down.

I debated the title for a few minutes and went with it even though the flowers don’t appear to be battling for the sun; they all have plenty of light. They’re quite tall though, which is a trait of plants in crowded areas. When a tree is surrounded by other trees, it will grow straight up to get sunlight, but a tree alone will branch out because it has plenty of light. Plants are semi-intelligent.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/500, F5.6, 135mm, …

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Unlike in Publix’s ads, tomatoes can be very ugly. I shot this at the local produce market and you can see spots all over them. Granted, I added contrast, color, and vignetting, but I didn’t bother editing out all the spots like the professionals do. Normally I’d call it laziness, but today I’m calling it realism. These are tomatoes without silicone… no, that has nothing to do with boobs.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/30, F4, 44mm, ISO800, 2009-08-13T15:51:35-04, 20090813-195135rxt

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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 Barbie skates at the thrift store, long outgrown.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/50, F4, 38mm, ISO800, 2009-08-17T14:00:19-04, 20090817-180019rxt

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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 bowl of delicious fruit prepared by my Aunt. There’s pineapple, pears, oranges, and kiwi fruit. Very delicious. It was soon eaten after I snapped this shot.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/80, F3.5, 33mm, ISO100, 2009-01-11T13:27:37-05, 20090111-182737rxt

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!

Light blue flowers, like velvet in the sun.

This was framed well. There are a whole bunch more flowers on the left and below, a dark plant on the right, and deep turquoise sky above. It wasn’t quite like that in reality, but I changed the color of the sky and made the flowers lighter in Photoshop, by manipulating curves on the a and b channels in the Lab colorspace.

These flowers are near bldg. 300 at Daytona State College. I had to sit near the ants on the sidewalk while pointing my camera up to get this …

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I returned to the spot of Gridiron Sky for this shot. These flowers had fallen to the ground, so I picked them up and held them against the reflective building. It makes a nice background.

For editing, I darkened the sky and corners a lot, while adding color and contrast. I use an RGB working color space, so after adding contrast, the colors become over-saturated. I reduced the saturation overall then, and then used the gamut warning tool for toning down parts of the flower. It’s important that the colors look good on screen and in …

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Sunrays 6! W00t!

Saw this outside my door, so I ran out into the street snapping pictures. It’s amazing what pops up if you watch the sky every evening. These were the most impressive beams of light and darkness I’ve seen; I didn’t even have to edit much. I did a bit of dodging and burning, and added contrast with the curves tool, but that was it.

The light is good. Let the light guide you to courageously fulfilling your dreams and aspirations. But like any good sunset, your dreams are always on the move. I know …

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I saw the golden colors flooding in through the window just a few hours ago, so I rain out and snapped this photo of the gorgeous sunset that was gracing my front yard. I haven’t seen a sunset this impressive before. The swirls of clouds were awesome, and went far above what you see in the frame. I couldn’t fit them all in even at 18mm, which is as wide as the Canon Rebel XTi kit lens would go.

I punched the contrast up in Photoshop. …

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An arrangement of beautiful pink flowers and green fern leaves with perfect lighting. All synthetic, of course. But whose to say that makes them less valuable? They sure last longer, for one thing.

Editing involved adding contrast and burning the edges. It was hard to keep the colors in gamut as these are hard to print, but I solved it by toning them down and then selectively re-adding saturation where it would turn out best.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/80, F2.8, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-07-12T10:24:02-04, 20080712-142402rxt

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A brilliant sunset with deep blue sunrays. Shot this through the windshield from my Grandma’s car. The colors were interesting, and the contrast and light patterns beautiful.

Editing involved noise reduction, heaps of added contrast and darkening, and lots of burning on the upper-right quadrant. Enjoy!

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/2000, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-07-11T17:25:14-04, 20080711-212514rxt

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!

More of the Sunrays series.