Tag Archives: flowers


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: Red Candy

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Red Candy — tasty red flowers in the woods

I came across these delectable flowers on an evening walk. Just had to have them. I positioned the camera to have some palm frond leaves on the sides as a frame, and then snapped away. In Photoshop, I darkened everything but the flowers, desaturated all the color channels except red, and burned the corners especially. An eye-catching effect. Selective coloring is often tacky, but I hope I’ve done a good job of it here.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-10T19:43:55-04, 20080710-234355rxt

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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 Sibling Flowers

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The Sibling Flowers — A red flower and a white flower together

A pair of flowers; one white, one deep red. I shot this at the garden section at Wal-Mart; the flowers were already close together, but I moved them closer. It’s a good combination. I got as close as my lens would focus to cut out the background.

I under-exposed compared to my camera’s meter on purpose, as it was blowing out the whites in the auto-exposure mode. In Photoshop, I desaturated everything, but left color in the red flower and a bit of green in the leaves. I didn’t go all the way to black and white, as I feel the green adds to the mood. Then, it was just a matter of darkening everything and adding in some contrast. I also cloned out distracting highlights at the top and burned the corners slightly.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-05-04T18:54:55-04, 20080504-225455rxt

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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 Brave Rose

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The Brave Rose — a pink rose trapped by a chain-link fence

This is a brave rose, because she’s trapped behind a chain-link fence. I went out for a walk with my camera this morning and spotted this; the rose was right near the fence, so I moved it to be peeking through one of the diamonds. The background was a house and the rest of the fence, but I opened up to F2.5 to blur it almost completely, keeping your focus on the flower.

By only leaving color in the red channel, everything else went black and white. I used subtle coloring on the rose, a glow effect, and added plenty of contrast. To balance the frame and draw the eye toward the center, I darkened everything else with the burn tool, especially toward the edges. This is a good example of how editing can produce a mood, the mood here being one of sadness and reflection, not only from the rose being behind the fence, but from the dark feel I added, and by alienating the subject from its surroundings with selective coloring.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/100, F2.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-05-17T06:47:05-04, 20080517-104705rxt

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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: 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

Download the high-res JPEG, download the source image, or download the .psd version, with the rose already isolated with an alpha channel.

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: 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: 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.

Photo: The Garden in Yellow

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The Garden in Yellow — sharp yellow flowers against a black background

Yellow flowers highlighting a dark garden. This was in the flower section at Wal-Mart; who says you can’t take great photos there? :big-grin:

A darkened background, brighter flowers, and contrast enhancements make this photo stand out.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/40, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2007-08-23T22:21:15-04, 2007-08-23_22h21m15

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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: Symmetry

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Symmetry — a yellow, sunlit flower against a deep blue sky

The sky makes a beautiful background for flowers. You might have to lay in grass, but it’s worth it for a photo like this. I am pleased that the yellow, blue, and green colors mix nicely. :smile:

The colors pop because of added contrast, and a blending layer with the “soft light” style in Photoshop. I cloned in extra sky at the top; otherwise part of the flowers get chopped off in the print. This is one thing you need to watch out for if you’re going to do borderless printing; don’t put stuff at the edge of the frame or it will be chopped off (bleed edge). Same for television because of overscan.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/1600, F3.5, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2006-11-06T10:30:34-05

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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.