Tag Archives: drops


Photo: Driving Raindrops

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Driving Raindrops — raindrops on the windshield, on a foggy morning

Raindrops on the windshield of a car, on a foggy morning. I took this while Dad was driving; you can see the headlights of oncoming cars in the background. Photos like these are why I’m glad I always am fiddling with the camera; I could just ignore them, or relegate my photography to scheduled times, but I’d miss great opportunities (The Irrationality of Apportionment).

This one did well with editing. There were specks of dirt on the windshield, but they couldn’t stay. It was bluish out, but I switched to black and white. I added contrast. I removed droplets that were ugly or distracting, while being careful to not make the clone marks visible, even if they could only be revealed through editing with levels. I did this by using the levels tool to darken the image significantly, then going back and cleaning up the parts I saw that looked spotty. That was for the streaks that were on the windshield in the bright part of the sky.
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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/160, F5.6, 54mm, ISO200, 2007-09-28T07:52:34-04, 2007-09-28_11h52m34

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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: Raindrops 3: Chaos in the Rain

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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

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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.

More of the Raindrops series.

Photo: Drops of Life

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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

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

Photo: The Fountain

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The Fountain — water from a man-made fountain, frozen in motion

A coquina-rock fountain out front of the City Hall in Holly Hill, Florida. I used a 1/1600 shutter speed to freeze the water drops. The bright green lawn and yellow rocks matched well. I tried a shot from down low, with the water against the sky, but it was too dark and lifeless. This is certainly more attractive.

Just simple contrast improvements. I cloned out two distracting droplets at the bottom of the frame, and a red stop sign in the background.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1600, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-12T11:12:14-04, 20080612-151214rxt

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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: The Sky’s Mirror

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

Photo: Liquid Suspension

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Liquid Suspension — water droplets floating in a spider's web

Tiny raindrops, levitating in a spiderweb. Most people don’t realize it’s a spider’s web, but if you’re observant, you can figure it out from the stray dirt and threads. I shot this in January 2007 with my old Canon A620 (this is the first release here); I focused as close as it would go (one centimeter) for this, as the drops were really tiny. To increase the depth-of-field, I closed down to F7.1 (the range on the A620 is F2.8-F8). I kept taking photos after this, but disturbed the web mistakenly, causing all the drops to fall. This one, while dull at first, came to life with my editing. The reflections in the drops are my favorite element, each representing a microcosm of the world we know and love.

If you haven’t figured it out, spider webs aren’t pretty. There were pieces of dirt and dead bugs strewn in the web. My purpose as an artistic photographer is to present a realistic ideal of the world, through whatever means necessary. My job was to remove those, both from the web and the droplets’ reflections. I only did this in a couple; in the other droplets, I decided that the reflections pass for branches or leaves above or around the web. I used Adobe Photoshop CS2’s spot healing brush and clone stamp to take out the offending elements, while double checking that there were no smudge marks by making the image much darker using the Levels tool, followed by checking the integrity of the highlights. The last step was to crank the contrast into overdrive (curves), because the scene was really dull to start; it was a dreary, overcast day, after all. It all came together in the post-processing stage.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/320, F7.1, 7.3mm, ISO50, 2007-01-18T13:16:43-05, 2007-01-18_18h16m43

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Photo: Crystal Rain

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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

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