Sunset on the highway at dusk. Into the dark clouds…

The cloud formations caught my eye. There are dark clouds across the whole sky, with sunshine underneath. This was right near dusk, so I had to hold the camera still with a 1/30 second shutter speed at ISO400.

For editing, I added some contrast, darkened the corners, and toned down the clouds that were over-saturated from adding contrast in an RGB colorspace. This one is fairly grainy.

Leave me some comments, loyal readers / viewers.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/30, F4, 47mm, ISO400, 2008-11-14T17:47:49-05, 20081114-224749rxt1

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Christmas is here early! The trees are frosted with ice.

Actually, this is Daytona Beach, Florida, where it doesn’t get cold enough to frost the trees over. I saw this tree in the parking lot at the grocery store; the stark contrast with the background caught my eye. There was a streetlight right near it.

I didn’t have a tripod with me, so I had to hold the camera. The first thing I tried was setting the camera on the ground pointing upward, but I couldn’t get the right composition. My 28-135mm lens only goes down to F3.5, …

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The golden highway: International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach, Florida, near the race track. I shot this through the windshield of the car from a few hundred feet away, with my lens at 135mm, the maximum telephoto. Since my camera has a 22.2×14.8mm (cropped) sensor, that’s the 35mm equivalent of 216mm.

The light around the cars struck me immediately. Shooting through a scratched windshield actually makes the scene more beautiful, because you have streaks of light and contrast around the highlights. The downside is that the photo is initially low-contrast. I cranked up the contrast with …

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The dishes are washed and the kitchen is closed. This was lit by a beautiful sunset outside my door. It was at dusk when I shot this, but I balanced the camera on the counter for a 2.5-second exposure to give the sensor enough light.

What goes on around the sunset is often a lot more interesting than the sunset itself. Or the solar eclipse, or full moon, or the big thunderstorm. Take shots of everything, or take shots of something and focus on it. Usually for me, the first shot I take of an object or …

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The corner of the Riverside National Bank at 1060 W. International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach FL. It looks interesting by itself. I angled the camera and set this against a blue, cloudless region of the sky. Then, I made the sky dark and the bricks redder on the computer. Ha ha. Always have to do that sort of editing.

This was an interesting study in geometry and architecture, though I don’t think about those things at all when taking photos. I just photograph what looks unusual.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1250, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-09-25T10:13:45-04, 20080925-141345rxt

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My last work with the Sigma 105mm macro lens. This is a closeup of backlit clouds against a cotton candy sunset. The colors are my favorite part of this; the lens really brings them out.

I used to think sunsets were only good as panoramas, but it’s just as interesting to focus on a small piece of the sky.

Canon Rebel XTi, Sigma EF 105mm 1:2.8, 1/200, F3.2, 105mm, ISO200, 2008-09-04T19:48:58-04, 20080904-234858rxt

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 car with yellow headlights illuminates the road on a dark, cloudy evening.

This car had lights that were unusually colored. I bet they had a yellow filter over them, but they looked brighter than normal too.

For editing, I decided to go with really warm colors, much more so than the actual scene. It gives a better mood than bluish tones. Also, I dodged the ground to make it look like the headlights are brighter, while adding contrast and burning the corners to make the scene more eye-catching. Because I shot this at ISO400, I brought …

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I had this idea of drawing a heart with a laser pointer. I set the camera up on a tripod, set the timer to ten seconds, and then drew this with the laser in the 3.2 seconds the picture was exposed.

Actually, it wasn’t easy like that. It took me 50 tries to get right. Have you ever tried to draw a heart on the wall with a laser pointer? I did two of them, and getting them to look anything like hearts, timed to 3.2 seconds, is quite a feat itself. This was the best I …

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Lilac (purple) flowers at the Daytona State College campus. These aren’t lilacs, but I like the name so I’m using it to refer to the color.

A friend volunteered to let me borrow his lens: a Sigma EF 105mm 1:2.8. I have it till next week, so I’ve been taking pictures of stuff with the different perspective it offers. Everything’s so close; I can’t get any sort of landscapes with this. But it’s interesting to focus on the details, and I can get closer to flowers than I can with the kit lens.

While I take good …

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The fifth entry in the series: a burst of sunshine through the dark clouds. I like the power lines at the bottom-right… they sweep in at the right angle.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F4, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-08-11T17:21:08-04, 20080811-212108rxt

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.