Hybrid lilies at Wal-Mart. Photo from 2005. As all of the 2005 photos I am posting this month, this is a new edit with a lot of extra color and contrast.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/132, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-24T14:12:34-04, 2005-10-24_14h12m34
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A macro of pink flowers with water drops, using the flash. Photo from 2005.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-10T07:33:41-04, 2005-10-10_07h33m41
Location: Thripp Residence, Ormond Beach, FL 32174-7227
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A swirl of clouds in a blue sky. This is from 2005. The only problems are the power lines and over-exposed clouds; otherwise I think it looks great.
Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/2000, F4.7, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-10-07T17:43:10-04, 2005-10-07_17h43m10
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When life gives you lemons… make lemonade. Shot this at Wal-Mart with my digital compact while looking for groceries. The lemons are very yellow and this probably wouldn’t print well, but it looks nice on the screen. 
For editing, I used the Auto Tone function and added a little contrast. Nothing other than that. Editing does not always have to be complicated.
The stickers on the lemons say “Sunkist 4958.” Every fruit has to have a sticker now.
Canon PowerShot SD790 IS, 1/60, F2.8, 6.2mm, ISO125, 2009-12-11T15:08:50-04, 20091211-200850rxt
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Amour wants to wander the world instead of being stuck in boring college courses. 
I wasn’t planning on using this for anything, but I love her eyes and pose because she looks innocent and curious.
There’s some guy standing in the background with a backpack, facing away. We were at a busy (sidewalk) intersection. If I asked him to move, three people would have immediately replaced him. Oh well. I think he filled in a hole because there was bright sky or a building behind him.
I brightened Amour’s eyes and darkened her pupils, cleaned her up a bit, and shifted the white balance to cloudy, which is warmer and more yellowish.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/800, F4.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T10:05:40-05, 20091102-150540rxt
Location: Daytona State College, 1200 W. International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114
These yellow orchids represent friendship only. 
I found these in someone’s front yard while going for a walk. I tried taking a picture from a high angle to just show grass in the background, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as a flower-level shot.
There is a house behind the flowers, but it’s blurred out because I used a large aperture (F2.8). I changed the white balance to be less warm, added brightness, and sharpened on the computer, along with the standard darkening of the corners (vignetting).
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/250, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:57:41-04, 20091016-205741rxt
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Light-blue flowers by a rustic wooden fence. Composed using the rule of thirds!
I was having some problems with wind… the petals of the flower at the back would get blown up during a breeze which looked ugly. I pushed the petals down and snapped this quickly, while also considering composition and contrast. I had to be careful to keep the flowers from being over-exposed. Faster shutter speed or smaller aperture (higher F number) = less light.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:55:37-04, 20091016-205537rxt
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Small blue flowers, sharply focused through a fence. The Canon EF 50mm F1.4 lens has good focus… you just have to close the aperture up a bit. I used F3.2. It’s hard to see if the image is sharp in the viewfinder. I zoom in afterward on the LCD screen and see if the subject looks sharp. The flowers weren’t extremely sharp because digital SLRs don’t sharpen much, but I sharpened this on the computer.
These flowers are behind a chain-link fence by someone’s sidewalk. If you just walk around with a camera you’ll find photo opportunities like this. There is no reason to spend thousands of dollars traveling if you’re just going to photograph nature and still life. You have plenty of still life around you.
I could have got down on the ground instead of shooting the flowers from above, but the house was painted bright white. I did not want it in the frame… just other flowers, bushes, and grass.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:42:25-04, 20091016-204225rxt
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A beautiful golden sunset right before sundown.
I shot this right down my street. There were power lines blocking the way, so I walked in someone’s yard to cut them out of the shot. Some woman yelled “get off my property” at me as I was shooting this, so I tripped the shutter quickly and then walked off.
I put contrast at +100% in Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 and then used the curves tool to push it even further. Even though I pushed the exposure bias down to -1.33, I think I was in the wrong metering mode so the clouds in the middle are over-exposed: they are at (255,255,255) (8-bit) and there is no detail there. Nothing I can do about that… It’s not a big problem in this photo because you expect the sun to be bright.
I pushed a lot of stuff to black with the curves tool, such as the trees and houses below. They aren’t important… no reason for you to see them.
There is a lot of black and empty space in this image. You can do that. The subject does not have to be big and in the center. In fact, it’s often more interesting to make the subject small. In this case, the subject is the sunset and the periphery is the dark clouds at the top.
Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/640, F7.1, 55mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T18:33:25-04, 20091010-223325rxt
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Pink flowers in a garden in the trailer park near our house. I like the look of these flowers; they have a pink hue mixed with cool blue, unlike pink roses which are generally more warm. Of course this all depends on white balance and editing, but these flowers look good in cool colors while roses don’t.
“Cool” colors are bluish; “warm” colors are yellowish. This photo might be closer to neutral, but I pick warm colors over cool colors in most of my photos so it’s subjectively cool.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/30, F5.6, 135mm, ISO800, 2009-09-12T07:19:48-04, 20090912-111948rxt
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