A vivid pink sunset from September 2005, heavily edited. At the time I believed editing produced “fake” photos but now I know better. 
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/21, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-09-09T19:50:41-04, 2005-09-09_19h50m41
Download the high-res JPEG (1.5MB) or download the source image (1.62MB).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.
Purple Morning Glory flowers at 8 A.M. By the afternoon these all fall off. The next day, they bloom again. Definitely an interesting flower.
Instead of doing a macro, I did a wide shot characteristic of a new photographer. Newbies never get close enough. However, I like this shot because no flower is special. There are just a whole lot of them, and the viewer is an equal distance from most of them. In photography, every rule can be broken.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F4, 41mm, ISO100, 2009-08-20T08:18:53-04, 20090820-121853rxt
Download the 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 here.
After the sun went down, the clouds still looked great. Shot this last Friday, 2009-09-04, from the car.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F3.5, 28mm, ISO800, 2009-09-04T19:40:41-04, 20090904-234041rxt
Download the 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 here.
Lilac (purple) flowers at the Daytona State College campus. These aren’t lilacs, but I like the name so I’m using it to refer to the color.
A friend volunteered to let me borrow his lens: a Sigma EF 105mm 1:2.8. I have it till next week, so I’ve been taking pictures of stuff with the different perspective it offers. Everything’s so close; I can’t get any sort of landscapes with this. But it’s interesting to focus on the details, and I can get closer to flowers than I can with the kit lens.
While I take good care of my camera and lenses, one of the worries in borrowing a lens–or anything for that matter–is that it will break in your possession, or you’ll break it by accident. Breaking your own stuff isn’t so bad as breaking someone else’s stuff, because then you (generally) feel obligated to replace it. What happens more often is the lender will say you broke it when you didn’t. Or if anything goes wrong with it in a period of one month after you return it, the lender blames it on you. I’m not sure why this happens, but it seems to …
The fourth entry in the series, containing four of the respectable spheres. You already knew that from the informative title, though.
I was innovating with placement of the still life here; one is at the front, two far back, and one back even further. It’s pleasing to my eyes, as is the contrast between the sky reflections and dark marbles, even if the table goes to white.
I added contrast, removed dust, and kept the blues under control, as normal.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/185, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-05-31T14:21:36-04, 2006-05-31_14h21m36
Download the 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 here.
More of the Blue Marbles series.
The dark marbles, with traces of black and purple. This has colder lighting. The stacked marbles contribute to an interesting composition, as does the stray line in the background. I picked marbles that were cracked and weathered, to oppose the smooth perfection of the first photo. This is a sub-par entry in the series because the purples are ugly and without detail, but it’s been in the series for two years so it’s worthy of staying. This new edit is an improvement over the two-year old original.
I set tungsten white balance on this, over-exposing the blues horribly. I had no concept of color back in early 2006, and because this is from a low-end JPEG only camera, the detail is unrecoverable. In the new version above, I darkened the marbles, desaturated the clipped blue hues and cloned in the color of the dark marbles, giving purple, and added contrast. It’s a big step up from the original.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/8, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2006-03-21T06:46:32-05, 2006-03-21_06h46m32
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 Blue Marbles series.
The capstone of the series, despite nearing two years of age, Pink and Purple Sunset 3 maintains a permanent spot in my portfolio. It is beloved wherever I show it, though vocal few hate it, calling it as over-edited and “phony.” I don’t believe this; this is my photography, as is the work of a whole new generation theirs. Read The “Pure Photography” Myth for further discussion.
I’ve put more time into this photo than any other, as I strive for it to be perfect, which, for me, is to reveal no blemishes nor traces of editing, even under intense scrutiny. The contrast enhancements are high, but I did not need to shift the colors nor fabricate the clouds. The finished work you’ve seen is the third revision, the first being to remove the building on the right, the second for removing the tree on the left, and the final, only coming this month, to match the print gamut and clone out the remaining JPEG artifacts (which aren’t visible except in large copies). In the June 2006 release I’d already dramatized the colors and removed the pesky …
A beautiful and colorful sunset from my back yard. I remember taking this when I was sick with a cold; I was too tired to walk down the road looking for an open area, so the sunset is occluded by trees and power lines. It’s still pretty good, though.
I added contrast to make this pop, and cloned out stray tree branches at the left.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/20, F4.2, 12.9mm, ISO100, 2006-04-01T18:51:48-05, 2006-04-01_18h51m48
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 Pink and Purple Sunset series.
An impressive array of clouds at sundown. I like how the colors turned out, and the shape of the clouds is quite a bit different than what you normally see.
This one is heavily edited. I used curves to add a ton of contrast and darkened the edges. I didn’t have to mess with the color, except desaturating parts that were too vivid; the beauty of the scene was all there, but just needed to be brought out.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F4.44, 14.9mm, ISO98, 2006-03-22T18:42:07-05, 2006-03-22_18h42m07
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 Pink and Purple 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
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.
| $0 | $2000 | |
| Current: $172.71 | ||
