Photo: Night Meets Day

Night Meets Day — sunlit leaves against a moonlit sky

Leaves from the American sycamore tree in my yard. This photo is with my new polarizing filter; I made the sky look as dark as possible with it, and put the moon in the frame to make the scene a cross between night and day. So the moon didn’t become a blurry white blob, I closed down to F18, so I increased the ISO speed to 800, but the grain works well here. So you have the sunshine of late afternoon, but the dark blue sky of a moonlit night.

Though the polarizer took care of making the sky dark, I added some contrast, toned down the colors of the leaves, and added heavy vignetting (darkening at the corners), to keep your eyes from wandering off the edge. I also brightened the moon a bit.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F18, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-04-11T18:15:36-04, 20080411-221536rxt

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Photo: Bubble in the Sea

Bubble in the Sea — an ant, trapped underwater in an air bubble

These are some Loquat fruits that my Dad was washing off (for their cancer-fighting properties). When I looked at them, I saw this going on: an ant, trapped in an air bubble, with another ant outside the bubble, already drowned. The ant in the bubble was moving around, trying to escape. I ran to get my camera; used my small digicam, as it focuses this close while the lenses I have for my DSLR won’t, and captured this scene.

Ants are people too! Actually, they aren’t. They type here is red imported fire ant, which we have far too many of in Central Florida.

I removed some specks of dirt (can’t have dirt on my fruit), plus added contrast to liven things up. I burned in the corners slightly, and dodged the blue areas so they can better play off the yellow and orange bits.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/2, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2008-03-18T15:52:18-04, 20080318-195218rxt

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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: Autumnal Leaves

Autumnal Leaves — the leaves of autumn are about to fall

The leaves of autumn come out. Took this in my yard last fall (2007); the tree always has sublime colors; though not vivid reds and oranges, there are stately reds and browns. This is wide-angle to show how big the maze of branches and leaves is, giving a sense of awe. The dark leaves at the corners help bring your eyes to the center.

No spot editing was needed; I did some simple contrast enhancements to bring out colors and tones.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/640, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2007-09-23T11:30:30-04, 2007-09-23_15h30m30

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Photo: Yellow Sunshine

Yellow Sunshine — sunlit yellow flowers mix with a vivid blue sky

Flowers with the sun behind them. I included the sun in the frame, but it goes to white or else everything else would be black. This was a great scene, especially for the deep blue sky and cloud formations that work together with the yellow flowers.

I added a blurry glow while keeping the grain in the sky as a counter-point to the soft flowers. The added contrast pushes the branches to black while keeping detail in the clouds (not the sun), but adds focus to the flowers. There’s more info in my short article, On Exposure.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/800, F8, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-08-19T14:38:25-04, 2007-08-19_18h38m25

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Photo: Flowers of Gold

Flowers of Gold — bright yellow flowers against a sunny blue sky

These are some golden-yellow flowers in my aunt and uncle’s yard. These were low to the ground; I had to lay in the grass to snap this, potentially exposing myself to pesticides and bugs. It’s worth it for my craft, of course!

I added a lot of contrast and brightened the sky. That was the hardest part, because I wanted the sky to be uniformly and realistically lightened, so I analyzed the dodging by setting the brightness level on the image to be very dark (with an overlay layer), and then looked for dark patches, which I’d dodge or clone out.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/3200, F2.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2007-11-12T14:37:44-05, 20071112-193744rxt

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Photo: The Yellow Symphony

The Yellow Symphony — vivid flowers against a warm sky

Yellow flowers from an roofless flower shop; you can find good photos anywhere. I took this from a low angle, so you can’t see any people or products in the background; just the sky. There’s interesting stuff among the stems and flowers below, but most people just look at the flowers at the top.

I spent a while changing the colors; I was debating between cooler blue tones or warm red and yellow, finally choosing the latter after comparing. There was an out-of-focus flower that creeped into the bottom-right of the frame that I cloned out, and I applied contrast enhancements and a subtle glowing effect. I let the sky go to pure white and the shadowy jungle below the flowers to black, because those areas don’t deserve detail.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/1000, F4.5, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-06-08T14:23:26-04, 2007-06-08_18h23m26

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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: Assimilation

Assimilation — a lone red leaf in a sea of death

A bright-red leaf out-of-place in a field of sickly brown leaves. I happened upon this idea as I saw a red leaf amongst all the brown leaves in our yard, so then I went and found a better leaf and positioned it like this. It was rainy and overcast, so the lighting was lower contrast and a bit blue, which is fitting for this image.

This didn’t need much spot editing, but it did benefit from added contrast and a shift to cooler colors. I added red to the leaf and desaturated the background (just a tad) to make it stand out more.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/10, F7.1, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-08T14:07:05-05, 2007-01-08_19h07m05b

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Photo: Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes — eight bite-sized tomatoes in a row

Cherry tomatoes that I arranged in a line. The yellow table makes a great background for red-colored still life. They look good enough to eat!

I cloned out the dirt that was on the tomatoes and table, removed background reflections and distractions, brightened the image, and added contrast.
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Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/74, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-08-07T14:27:03-04, 2006-08-07_14h27m03

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