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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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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I saw this sunset out the window on the Granada bridge over the Halifax river in Ormond Beach. I was a passenger in the car, so I was able to snap this out the window. It was quite dark, almost night. I had to go all the way up to ISO1600 and all the way down to F1.6 to get a 1/60 shutter speed, so the full size version is quite grainy, but it seems artful.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F1.6, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-08-15T20:20:47-04, 20080816-002047rxt

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!

Richard's picks:

This beautiful sunset caught my eye out the window. The skies here are just getting better and better. I ran out with my wide-angle lens (the kit lens) and started snapping different angles of it. It didn’t look like this to start, but I stuck around for ten minutes and the clouds came together in this odd formation. It looks like cotton candy, caramel flavored. I found it really interesting that the sun was like a spotlight, because it was dark outside of the clouds as you can see at the edges of this photo.

I …

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This is what it feels like to live in the fog all the time. Took this of some green traffic lights at night. How did I get the fog? I blew on the lens, and the condensation made the photo turn out like this, no fog required.

I added a ton of contrast, burned in the sides, and switched to black and white. The added contrast amplified the noise considerably, so this is a noisy image. It works because of the lack of color, though.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, …

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Torrential rain on the windshield at night, with stop lights. This is with a lot of droplets on the windshield, and traffic lights and oncoming traffic ahead. Neat patterns, the droplets made.

For editing, I darkened it all a lot, added contrast to push the whites to the limit, and desaturated a bit. Enjoy.

Buy a 4*6 copy for $0.95 (USA only). Lustre finish. After adding, go to your shopping cart.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/400, F2, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-07-16T22:28:56-04, 20080717-022856rxt

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!

This is what the pool looks like… at night. Got up at 4 A.M. to shoot this during my vacation; I set the camera on the edge near the pool, dialed in a 30-second exposure, set the timer, and then waited. There were some lights on in the house on the left, which gave nice light. You can see the trees are blurred from the wind, as is the water in the pool. Ready for a swim?

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 30″, F3.5, 18mm, ISO800, 2008-06-29T03:50:44-04, …

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Cars on a slick highway in the evening. I was liking how the lights were reflecting off the pavement, so I grabbed my camera to snap this from the car. 5 minutes after Ominesence, and 20 minutes before Flash in the Night.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/200, F2.2, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-06-26T17:49:53-04, 20080626-214953rxt

Source image. Added a touch of contrast, nothing more.

Free high-res stock image.