Photo: Raindrops 3: Chaos in the Rain

Raindrops 3 — a landscape of raindrops

A wide-angle shot of a chaotic storm. The water is rolling off the roof above, which you can see at the top of the frame. I liked the feel of the scene.

I desatured 100% and added contrast with the curves tool, being careful not let the whites clip by watching my histogram. I didn’t mind losing details in the shadows, though.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/2500, F4, 18mm, ISO800, 2007-09-19T14:18:53-04, 2007-09-19_18h18m53

Location: Thripp Residence, Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7227

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

More of the Raindrops series.

Photo: Raindrops 2

Raindrops 2 — sharp droplets, captured in motion in black and white

Raindrops coming off the roof of one of our sheds during a storm, with a background of trees and sky. This was one of the first shots I took with my Canon Rebel XTi last year; it’s so much more flexible than a point-and-shoot because you can freeze motion like this even in fairly low light. I like how the swirly drops turned out.

Same editing as Raindrops 1: added contrast and converting to black and white. No spot editing needed, which is always nice.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F4, 25mm, ISO800, 2007-08-10T15:32:14-04, 2007-08-10_19h32m14

Location: Thripp Residence, Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7227

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

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Photo: Drops of Life

Drops of Life — water drops falling off a hand

Raindrops falling off my hand, with the high-contrast black and white effect I love. It’s my hand; I held it up so the rain water would run off it, managing the camera with the other hand (as I’m so good at). Since the sun was behind my, it made my hand a black silhouette. These droplets represent life, because hands and the human touch is the essence of life.

I added a touch of contrast, and removed the little bit of color that was there. This one was great out of camera. 1600 ISO speed, but there isn’t much noise for some reason. (Maybe because it was cool out?).

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/3200, F3.5, 18mm, ISO1600, 2007-08-31T15:47:26-04, 2007-08-31_19h47m26

Location: Thripp Residence, Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7227

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Please credit me as “Photo by Richard Thripp” or something similar.

Photo: Waterlogged

Waterlogged — a hard disk platter and arm, dotted with raindrops

The hard drive that never was. Waterlogged is two years old, coming on the heels of Raindrops, but a classic nonetheless. This was the hard drive from my first computer, a budget desktop I got in 2000 (I was 9 then). In February of 2005 it failed, and I’d just left it sitting around till June of 2006 when I cracked the case open (harder than you’d think) and took this shot. The drive is a Seagate ST34311A. I was walking around the yard positioning it as a mirror, creating interesting compositions (Blend In is another), when it started raining. The hard drive got wet, and that inspired this photo. The platters make quite a mirror, making the reflections in the drops quite sharp. After drying, the mirror was covered with spots and dust I never could get off, unfortunately.

Don’t ever open your computer’s hard drive, unless it’s broke and you’ve backed up your data, or you have no hope of recovering it. The read/write head you see in the picture hovers on a cushion of air one-tenth the thickness of a hair, produced by the velocity of the spinning disk(s) (7200RPM is common now). Even a speck of dust on the platter can mess up the drive and destroy your data. Hard drives are really fragile, and generally a bad way to save information, but they’re still the best thing we have to store a lot of changing data, cheaply and quickly. Back up your pictures to CDs or DVDs too, as they’re more stable.

Many hard drives have multiple platters (two to five), but this has just one. I found out the disks aren’t thick (slightly thinner than a CD, though very rigid), and they’re double sided. Underneath is another head that moves in tandem with the top one, reading and writing data to the underside. I still have pieces of this drive scattered around the house somewhere.

My finger sneaked into the frame on the top-right, darn it. Had to clone it out in Photoshop. Same for the bright edge at the bottom-left, and the silver bolt at the top, because they were too distracting. I converted to black and white and added a good bit of contrast, making the image more appealing.
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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/139, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-06-25T19:03:53-04, 2006-06-25_19h03m53

Location: Thripp Residence, Ormond Beach, FL  32174-7227

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Photo: The Sky’s Mirror

The Sky's Mirror — blue raindrops from a stormy sky, on a glossy window

These raindrops were on the back window of a friend’s car, after the rain (appropriately). This was as close as I could get with my 50mm lens; I put the focus right in the center, so it fades out toward the edges. I liking how the reflections of light and clouds in the background turned out. You can see an outline of each drop on the underside of the window below, which is also interesting.

This is the spiritual successor of The Sky’s Ceiling and possibly Crystal Rain; check them out to see how my ideas are evolving.

The blue colors were largely fabricated. I darkened the photo and added contrast for effect.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/400, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-05-22T17:05:05-04, 20080522-210505rxt

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8×10: Raindrops

frame

Buy an 8*10 copy, in a cherry wooden frame as pictured above, for $49.95 (USA only). Free shipping. I only have 1 in stock, so if you buy more than that, it will take me a week to get a new print back from the lab, before I can mail it to you. After adding, go to your shopping cart. [quickshop:8*10 Raindrops (framed):price:49.95:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]

Photo: Crystal Rain

Crystal Rain — two blue raindrops suspended in the air

These drops are falling off my roof at my house. It was sunny out but still sprinkling. I got these two drops just as they were falling, with a nice, discreet background. The title is because they look like crystals (they’re shiny and reflective :grin: ).

I added contrast, sharpness, and color, and darkened the edges.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F5.6, 47mm, ISO400, 2008-04-05T18:20:56-04, 20080405-222056rxt

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Photo: The Sky’s Ceiling

The Sky's Ceiling — blue raindrops on glass

Raindrops resting on a car’s moonroof. This is looking up from inside, so my title means that this is the glass ceiling in the sky, which the water rests on.

I was going to make this black and white, but prefered the blue tint for being reminiscent of rain. I added contrast and vignetting by burning in the corners.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/60, F3.2, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-04-10T17:04:39-04, 2007-04-10_21h04m39

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Photo: Rose of Orange

Rose of Orange — beautiful orange petals decorated with raindrops

An orange rose with water drops; I took this at a Lowe’s flower shop. The bubble in the center is a droplet that looks to be floating; I didn’t use a dropper as this was after a storm.

The flower is a red hybrid-tea rose; I made the color shift by changing the white-balance setting in-camera.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/15, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-18T16:29:42-05, 2007-01-18_21h29m42

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Photo: Leafy Droplets 6

Leafy Droplets 6 — liquid drops on an colorful orange leaf

An orange leaf decorated with water drops. It’s unconventional, but I decided to fade to white at the top of the frame, as though the scene is overwhelmed by fog. Like with Leafy Droplets 2, I changed the leaf to orange, though this photo is brighter and composed differently. This is on my point-and-shoot camera, as it focuses closer than the lenses I have for my DSLR.

I changed the colors to orange, added contrast, cropped, and dodged and blurred the top part so the photo fades to white.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/60, F3.5, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2008-02-24T10:49:51-04, 20080224-154951rxt

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More of the Leafy Droplets series.