I saw the golden colors flooding in through the window just a few hours ago, so I rain out and snapped this photo of the gorgeous sunset that was gracing my front yard. I haven’t seen a sunset this impressive before. The swirls of clouds were awesome, and went far above what you see in the frame. I couldn’t fit them all in even at 18mm, which is as wide as the Canon Rebel XTi kit lens would go.

I punched the contrast up in Photoshop. The camera always captures images in such a dull way, but editing restores the beauty of the scene (Being a Free Photographer).

I literally ran out of the house to catch this, and kept taking pictures afterward, though they are less impressive. You have to work very quickly to get shots of sunsets; within ten minutes it had mostly faded away. I didn’t notice it while the clouds were forming like this; they may have looked even better then.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/200, F4.5, 18mm, ISO400, 2008-08-14T20:07:55-04, 20080815-000755rxt

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!

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!

I came across these delectable flowers on an evening walk. Just had to have them. I positioned the camera to have some palm frond leaves on the sides as a frame, and then snapped away. In Photoshop, I darkened everything but the flowers, desaturated all the color channels except red, and burned the corners especially. An eye-catching effect. Selective coloring is often tacky, but I hope I’ve done a good job of it here.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-10T19:43:55-04, 20080710-234355rxt

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 sunset near the Wal-Mart in South Daytona, Florida. I couldn’t move away to exclude the distractions, so I made them part of the scene to represent urban life. The colors and cloud dark clouds at the top drew my eye, as did the cars at the bottom. I made the tail light of a car the dot for the i in City, and the headlight the period for the X. in Richard X. Thripp. Creatively incorporating the title into the piece is nice sometimes.

Canon PowerShot A620, 1/160, F3.5, 14.93mm, ISO100, 2007-01-19T18:05:27-05, 2007-01-19_23h05m27b

Source image. I added a bunch of contrast, shifted the colors from yellow to pink, and brightened the lights of the cars.

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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, 20080629-075044rxt

Source image. Moderate contrast enhancements, took out some distractions.

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I shot this after my cousin’s dance recital, once everyone left. It was quite dark, so I pushed it to ISO800 and went down to F1.6, taking the opportunity to use a shallow depth of field. The theater is a dead one if I’ve seen one, in this picture at least. I like the colors of the chairs, and the lighting was nice and indirect, despite the dimness.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F1.6, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-06-22T00:52:14-04, 20080622-005214rxt

Source image. What did I do to this? First, I cloned out the open door in the background, which was a big, white, ugly distraction. I couldn’t get the wall to look right; it looked fake and too smooth. I didn’t want to deal with it, so I just pumped up the contrast till the background went to black. An effective solution in a pinch, and it adds to the mood of… deadness. Finally, I made the colors less yellow and burned in the corners (vignetting).

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The stars and stripes fly low on a windless day. There was a nice background of clouds, so I shot this of the flag from the ground. I placed the pole off-center a bit, as that’s more appealing to the eye.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/800, F7.1, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-12T11:14:07-04, 20080612-151407rxt

Source image. Added some contrast and color through curves.

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A pair of flowers; one white, one deep red. I shot this at the garden section at Wal-Mart; the flowers were already close together, but I moved them closer. It’s a good combination. I got as close as my lens would focus to cut out the background.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-05-04T18:54:55-04, 20080504-225455rxt

Source image. I under-exposed compared to my camera’s meter on purpose, as it was blowing out the whites in the auto-exposure mode. In Photoshop, I desaturated everything, but left color in the red flower and a bit of green in the leaves. I didn’t go all the way to black and white, as I feel the green adds to the mood. Then, it was just a matter of darkening everything and adding in some contrast. I also cloned out distracting highlights at the top and burned the corners slightly.

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These are magnets that are holding up 4*6 copies of my photos on the refrigerator. The sun shines through the window in the morning, lighting them up like this. I didn’t notice it before (not usually up in the mornings), but I had to snap this when I saw it.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/50, F5.6, 55mm, ISO400, 2008-05-30T07:39:13-04, 20080530-113913rxt

Source image. I toned down the blue channel while adding to the red channel, and darkened a bit.

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I was waiting for this quick-moving train to pass, so I took a picture of it, moving the camera with the this car as I exposed the image. It took me 30 tries, but I got this good one. To get a slow shutter speed, I closed way down to F22. Panning is a good technique; you should try it!

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/13, F22, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-05-13T17:08:44-04, 20080513-210844rxt

Source image. I think there’s some dust on my sensor, but I’m not going to try removing it because it only shows up at small apertures like F22 here. I cloned it out and added some nice colors and contrast. The sky is over-exposed, but I don’t mind it here; seems to match the movement of the train somehow.

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