Tag Archives: colorful


Photo: Sunset

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Sunset — a vivid, fiery mix of orange and white clouds at sundown

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. The camera always captures images in such a dull way, but editing restores the beauty of the scene (Being a Free Photographer).

I literally ran out of the house to catch this, and kept taking pictures afterward, though they are less impressive. You have to work very quickly to get shots of sunsets; within ten minutes it had mostly faded away. I didn’t notice it while the clouds were forming like this; they may have looked even better then.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/200, F4.5, 18mm, ISO400, 2008-08-14T20:07:55-04, 20080815-000755rxt

Location: 1832 Nelson Ave., Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7228

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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: Real Beauty

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Real Beauty — fake pink flowers

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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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Sunrays 4

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Sunrays 4 — deep blue sunrays break through the clouds

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

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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.

More of the Sunrays series.

Photo: Sunset in the City

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Sunset in the City — power lines, cars, and a beautiful pink sunset

A sunset near the Wal-Mart in South Daytona, Florida. I couldn’t move away to exclude the distractions, so I made them part of the scene to represent urban life. The colors and cloud dark clouds at the top drew my eye, as did the cars at the bottom. I made the tail light of a car the dot for the i in City, and the headlight the period for the X. in Richard X. Thripp. Creatively incorporating the title into the piece is nice sometimes.

I added a bunch of contrast, shifted the colors from yellow to pink, and brightened the lights of the cars.

Canon PowerShot A620, 1/160, F3.5, 14.93mm, ISO100, 2007-01-19T18:05:27-05, 2007-01-19_23h05m27b

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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 Florida Lifestyle

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The Florida Lifestyle — an orange smoothie in a tropical paradise

I’ve been wondering what the Florida lifestyle I’ve been hearing so much about is, but I’ve found it here. You may not know it, but the Florida lifestyle involves lots of bugs. There were plenty of flies flying around as flies sometimes do, but I shooed them away to snap this shot of an orange smoothie by the pool. I went with a blue border for this photo. Never done that before, but it fits the image so well.

I added contrast, removed specks of dirt from the glass, and touched up the color on the orange slice.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/2500, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-28T14:16:13-04, 20080628-181613rxt

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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: Blue Marbles 5: Diagonal Bias

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Blue Marbles 5: Diagonal Bias — a line of marbles, turned to the side

This, following the first, is the best in the series. I got really close here, so you can see the terrifying details of the marbles. This also gives very shallow depth of field, so the ones far back become quite blurry. Turning the camera to the side is another stab at creative composition, but I mainly did it to keep the edges of the yellow table out of the frame. The blue colors in this one turned out perfect; not too dark nor too bright.

How come I didn’t notice all the dust and hairs on the lead marble when I shot this? It was a pain in the neck to remove, but after that, all I had to do was add a splash of light and color.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/3, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2006-12-22T16:49:43-05, 2006-12-22_16h49m43

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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.

More of the Blue Marbles series.

Photo: Blue Marbles

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Blue Marbles — shiny spheres in a line

The definitive photo of blue marbles. These marbles are my grandmother’s, and the yellow table I arranged them on is on her veranda. I get to take creative shots of them like this, of course. :grin: The evening light was just right, and while I originally intended to focus on the first marble, having the focus on the second is more nonconforming and gives a sense of depth. I went back into Photoshop today to revamp this February 2006 piece; my editing skills have improved, so I’m finding the above version especially likable.

I added contrast, removed color, and darkened the edges. Unfortunately the blues clip where the light is shining through the marbles, but I toned the colors down anyway, since subtlety is better than garishness, and because the brighter colors look bad in print. There was some dirt on the marbles and table I had to clone out, as always, but I left some on the table so it doesn’t look overly perfect. The finishing touches were to desaturate the yellow hues slightly, and to sharpen and brighten the second marble while blurring the rest of the image. The camera I was using at the time (a Fujifilm FinePix A360) would only focus to 2.4 inches; I got too close so the first one is blurry. I’m liking the depth of field in retrospect, as it seems like the natural choice with the further emphasis of the second marble.
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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/63, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-02-22T17:49:43-05, 2006-02-22_17h49m43

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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.

More of the Blue Marbles series.

Photo: Pink and Purple Sunset 3

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Pink and Purple Sunset 3 — a psychedelic, neon sky

The capstone of the series, despite nearing two years of age, Pink and Purple Sunset 3 maintains a permanent spot in my portfolio. It is beloved wherever I show it, though vocal few hate it, calling it as over-edited and “phony.” I don’t believe this; this is my photography, as is the work of a whole new generation theirs. Read The “Pure Photography” Myth for further discussion.

I’ve put more time into this photo than any other, as I strive for it to be perfect, which, for me, is to reveal no blemishes nor traces of editing, even under intense scrutiny. The contrast enhancements are high, but I did not need to shift the colors nor fabricate the clouds. The finished work you’ve seen is the third revision, the first being to remove the building on the right, the second for removing the tree on the left, and the final, only coming this month, to match the print gamut and clone out the remaining JPEG artifacts (which aren’t visible except in large copies). In the June 2006 release I’d already dramatized the colors and removed the pesky streetlights which cluttered the neighborhood, but with the finalized edits this can even be imagined as a scene out in the wilderness. If I ever doubted the value of RAW mode, I found it here; because in 2006 I only had a cheap digicam, this is a lossy JPEG. In bringing the colors out so dramatically, I struggled against compression artifacts and color banding, which would have been no issue if I’d shot it now in raw format with my Canon Rebel XTi. It is not in comparing JPEGs and raw files side-by-side that the choice becomes clear, but in the digital darkroom where the extra bits count, and the “invisible” JPEG compression becomes greatly magnified when you add darkness, saturation, or contrast. My solution for the artifacts was to clone them out by hand, a tedious process that I spent some three hours on. But if I’m working for my art, it’s always worth it.
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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/2, F3.07, 6.8mm, ISO116, 2006-06-11T20:39:14-04, 2006-06-11_20h39m14

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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.

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Photo: Pink and Purple Sunset 2

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Pink and Purple Sunset 2 — bright and colorful clouds in an evening neighborhood

A beautiful and colorful sunset from my back yard. I remember taking this when I was sick with a cold; I was too tired to walk down the road looking for an open area, so the sunset is occluded by trees and power lines. It’s still pretty good, though.

I added contrast to make this pop, and cloned out stray tree branches at the left.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/20, F4.2, 12.9mm, ISO100, 2006-04-01T18:51:48-05, 2006-04-01_18h51m48

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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.

More of the Pink and Purple Sunset series.

Photo: Pink and Purple Sunset

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Pink and Purple Sunset — vividly colored clouds and sky

An impressive array of clouds at sundown. I like how the colors turned out, and the shape of the clouds is quite a bit different than what you normally see.

This one is heavily edited. I used curves to add a ton of contrast and darkened the edges. I didn’t have to mess with the color, except desaturating parts that were too vivid; the beauty of the scene was all there, but just needed to be brought out.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F4.44, 14.9mm, ISO98, 2006-03-22T18:42:07-05, 2006-03-22_18h42m07

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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.

More of the Pink and Purple Sunset series.