A stately orange sunset in my yard is the backdrop for silhouetted leaves of an American sycamore tree. Some of the leaves have been chewed by bugs; as you can see on the left. This only adds to the beauty, of course. There are even some raindrops on the leaves, left over from the storms earlier that day. I didn’t notice those till way after the shoot. This is the best of the Leafy Sunset series, trailing fifteen months after the fifth entry.

Initially, I underexposed to keep the sunset’s highlights from being clipped in the red channel, knowing that the leaves would be pure black anyway. I finished this up in editing, by bringing up the colors without any clipping, and I made a shift from red to burnt orange, which I find more appealing. The edited colors also print more faithfully.

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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/40, F3.5, 18mm, ISO200, 2007-08-31T19:52:43-04, 2007-08-31_23h52m43

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.

An orange and yellow sunset, framed by the silhouettes of evergreen leaves. This is from my back yard; the trees and power lines represent the fast pace of life in the modern neighborhood.

I brightened up parts, added color, and made the gray leaves black.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/667, F4.7, 17.4mm, ISO64, 2006-02-18T18:02:56-04, 2006-02-18_18h02m56

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.

A lively purple and yellow sky surrounds a branch of vivid green leaves. Dark green and bluish-purple complement each other. I used a flash to light up the branch; the alternative was to silhouette the leaves, but that didn’t look as good here.

I added saturation to the colors, darkened the edges, and increased the contrast.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/70, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-01-27T17:55:10-05, 2006-01-27_17h55m10

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.

Dark pink clouds and a blue sky, with the silhouettes of leaves and branches in the foreground. Sounds like a leafy sunset to me. The contrast and colors in the sky were beautiful; I hated the branches on the right for a while, but they seem to contain the image nicely.

I added contrast and burned in the top, so the sky goes to a frightening black.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/52, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-01-16T18:02:51-05, 2006-01-16_18h02m51

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.

Leaves and branches set against a dark yellow sunset. The vines may be distracting, but they have a pattern all their own, which meshes well with the colorful yet ominous sky.

Standard darkening and contrast added through curves here. I had to tone down the colors a bit, as they went out of gamut after the contrast enhancements (that happens often in RGB color spaces).

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/63, F4.7, 17.4mm, ISO64, 2006-01-13T17:40:46-05, 2006-01-13_17h40m46

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.

Yellow leaves against a blue and pink sky. This is an early piece, re-edited (January 2006). I took generic photos of the sunset, but wanted to experiment with including other elements of nature, which gave way to this. I used the flash to brighten the leaves, which also made the sunset appear darker and more vivid.

I added contrast and moved the colors from orange to pink to make this look good.

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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2006-01-04T17:54:53-05, 2006-01-04_17h54m53

Download the high-res JPEG or download the source image.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

More of the Leafy Sunset series.