A pink rose at Wal-Mart’s garden center, covered in water drops.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-23T07:52:43-04, 2005-10-23_07h52m43

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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.

Mushrooms are actually closer to animals than plants, because they decompose organic matter for energy just like we do. The difference is they do it outside their bodies. The real action happens underground; the actual mushroom is just for decoration.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-10T07:39:32-04, 2005-10-10_07h39m32

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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.

Another leafy droplets photo, this time of a bright yellow leaf. I made the background black. This photo is from 2005.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/12, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-12-08T16:32:22-05, 2005-12-08_16h32m22

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More of the Leafy Droplets series.

Delicious oranges on Grandma’s orange tree. Photo from 2005.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO79, 2005-11-19T14:57:31-05, 2005-11-19_14h57m31

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Hybrid lilies at Wal-Mart. Photo from 2005. As all of the 2005 photos I am posting this month, this is a new edit with a lot of extra color and contrast.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/132, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-24T14:12:34-04, 2005-10-24_14h12m34

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A macro of pink flowers with water drops, using the flash. Photo from 2005.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-10T07:33:41-04, 2005-10-10_07h33m41

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Some apple slices covered in honey baking in the oven. I shot this when I was cooking with friends for the International Food Festival at Daytona State College’s DeLand campus Nov. 2009. I wasn’t there for the festival and we didn’t sell much food, but at least this photo came of it.

The glass on the front of the oven had a speckled pattern which, combined with the heat, makes the inside of the oven foggy.

For editing, I just added contrast and changed the white balance in Adobe Camera Raw before importing into Photoshop. I didn’t do any spot editing. There’s a lot of grain since this was dark and I shot at ISO800, F2.2 with my 50mm lens. Using a flash wasn’t an option at all since that would have bounced off the glass.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F2.2, 50mm, ISO800, 2009-11-17T22:18:02-05, 20091118-031802rxt

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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.

These yellow orchids represent friendship only. I found these in someone’s front yard while going for a walk. I tried taking a picture from a high angle to just show grass in the background, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as a flower-level shot.

There is a house behind the flowers, but it’s blurred out because I used a large aperture (F2.8). I changed the white balance to be less warm, added brightness, and sharpened on the computer, along with the standard darkening of the corners (vignetting).

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/250, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:57:41-04, 20091016-205741rxt

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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.

Light-blue flowers by a rustic wooden fence. Composed using the rule of thirds!

I was having some problems with wind… the petals of the flower at the back would get blown up during a breeze which looked ugly. I pushed the petals down and snapped this quickly, while also considering composition and contrast. I had to be careful to keep the flowers from being over-exposed. Faster shutter speed or smaller aperture (higher F number) = less light.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:55:37-04, 20091016-205537rxt

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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.

Small blue flowers, sharply focused through a fence. The Canon EF 50mm F1.4 lens has good focus… you just have to close the aperture up a bit. I used F3.2. It’s hard to see if the image is sharp in the viewfinder. I zoom in afterward on the LCD screen and see if the subject looks sharp. The flowers weren’t extremely sharp because digital SLRs don’t sharpen much, but I sharpened this on the computer.

These flowers are behind a chain-link fence by someone’s sidewalk. If you just walk around with a camera you’ll find photo opportunities like this. There is no reason to spend thousands of dollars traveling if you’re just going to photograph nature and still life. You have plenty of still life around you.

I could have got down on the ground instead of shooting the flowers from above, but the house was painted bright white. I did not want it in the frame… just other flowers, bushes, and grass.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:42:25-04, 20091016-204225rxt

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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.