I shot this sunset from the backseat while my friend was driving. This is on West International Speedway Boulevard right near Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

On the left is the rear-view mirror and at the bottom you see the windshield wipers. That’s why I’m titling this Driving Sunset.

I cloned out a big electronic sign at the bottom-right. It was the college’s sign, but it was bright blue and annoying. You can still see the clone marks if you brighten the photo considerably, but no one will notice normally.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/500, F3.2, …

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A product at Wal-Mart. I think these were post-it notes on a roll but I don’t remember. I just liked the colors. They were near the frozen foods.

Any product you don’t know the name of is a “widget.”

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/100, F3.2, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-03-01T12:47:23-05, 20090301-174723rxt

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!

NO this is not a nude beach. It’s supposed to be funny. At least I think it is. I didn’t see any nudity there.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F3.5, 33mm, ISO100, 2009-01-11T14:11:06-05, 20090111-191106rxt

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!

Looking back at a sunset on a busy road from a moving van. The road is Nova Road in Ormond Beach, Florida (could be county or Holly Hill, not sure). The colors really caught my eye. The setting is less than ideal, but it’s the best I could muster as the sunset faded quickly.

I added a lot of contrast and some vignetting. After using curves, I toned down the saturation with the sponge manually in the areas that were too bright to print.

Canon PowerShot SD790 IS, 1/60, F2.8, 6.2mm, ISO160, 2009-07-01T20:33:10-04, 20090702-003310rxt

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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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Three bottles of orange juice, lined up on the roof of a black car, with shaded trees (left) and sunny trees (right) in the background.

This was store-bought orange juice I dispersed into water bottles. Then I removed the labels from the water bottles.

I like this composition… the colors, shapes of the bottles, lighting, and spacing came together that day. I made the colors warmer in Photoshop, brightened the bottles, darkened the edges. It’s a lot more idealistic.

The bokeh highlights in the background are eight-sided because my 50mm lens has eight uncurved aperture blades. …

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Ashley, resting against a palm tree during a windy afternoon. She’s so cool… probably because of the wind and all.

You can see she’s holding her glasses in her right hand. I told her to take them off since they weren’t working; you couldn’t see her eyes or face because you’d just be looking at her glasses.

Her plants were blue, but I changed them to black with color-channel desaturation. No spot-editing needed! I don’t like spot editing… some photographers enjoy it though.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/250, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-10-10T12:10:52-04, 20081010-161052rxt

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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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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