Tag Archives: white


Photo: The Last Battle

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The Last Battle — a twig vs. the incoming black clouds

The only remaining twig, fighting the last battle against the incoming storm clouds. All the other ones have been washed away, or struck by lightning or something. I ripped this plant life off a bush of some sort in our yard (it’s a jungle out there), because it has a nice shape and pattern of leaves. It fit the bright space in the sky well, so I held it up with one hand while snapping the shot with the other.

It was a bit bluish out; I found the image worked better in black and white. I added a lot of contrast to push the branch to black and the bright parts of the sky to near white, then darkened the dark clouds to add punch. It was late, so I under-exposed to gain a fast enough shutter speed, and because I knew I wouldn’t need shadow detail anyway. That’s why the original image is dark.
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/100, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO100, 2007-05-13T19:56:32-04, 2007-05-13_23h56m32

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: Cars at Night

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Cars at Night — a slick road reflecting the headlights of cars

Cars on a slick highway in the evening. I was liking how the lights were reflecting off the pavement, so I grabbed my camera to snap this from the car. 5 minutes after Ominesence, and 20 minutes before Flash in the Night.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/200, F2.2, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-06-26T17:49:53-04, 20080626-214953rxt

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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: Ominesence

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Ominesence — a stormy, ominous sky over the sea and city

Ominesence: the state or quality of being ominous. The real word is ominousness, but I made up this alternate. This is a river and city with dark clouds overhead. The right side is bright light and good weather, though it too is broached by darkness. I took this in a moving car crossing a bridge; you can see the railing at the bottom. Used a 1/250 second shutter speed to freeze the scene, though I had to go up to ISO800 because it was so dark out.

I added contrast, darkened the dark clouds and corners, and removed a lot of noise. There were lots of markers and pylons in the river which were bugging me. I cloned all of them out. Now it looks like it should.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/250, F1.8, 50mm, ISO800, 2008-06-26T17:44:30-04, 20080626-214430rxt

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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: Flash in the Night

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Flash in the Night — a bolt of lightning brightens the dark sky

A bolt of lightning flashes through the dark sky. This was from the storm during my vacation. My grandmother forbade me from going outside ( :neutral: ), so I shot this through the screen window. You can see the pattern of the window on the sky, though it’s out of focus. The blurred spots may have been water drops on the window. I snapped fifty photos, and was lucky enough to get this one as the lightning struck. I put some of my tips from Torrential Rain to good use.

I closed down all the way to F22 in aperture priority mode, yielding a 1.6 second shutter speed. I braced the camera against the window, and fired away. Before this, I set the exposure compensation to -2, so the lightning would not be too bright.

The source image looks brighter than it should. I purposely underexposed when shooting, so the lightning would not be too bright when it popped up. I shifted the colors to be more bluish, removed some dust spots, burned in the corners, and darkened a bit. That’s all the lightning needed!

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1.6″, F22, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-26T18:08:28-04, 20080626-220828rxt

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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: Into the Woods

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Into the Woods — trees, nature, and green leaves off on the trail

Go into the woods… do not be afraid. :sunglasses: This is my Grandma’s yard. There are houses around, but from where I shot this, they’re all obstructed by trees. The lighting and colors were nice, since we had a rainy white sky.

I added contrast and a glow effect.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/60, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-06-20T16:31:07-04, 20080620-203107rxt

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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 Graceful Flag

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The Graceful Flag — a United States flag keeping still on a windless day

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.

I added some contrast and color through curves.

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

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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 Prison

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The Prison — the evil chain link fence

The prison is all in your mind… unless there’s a fence. This is on the campus at my school; behind it is a lot of new construction, though it’s blurry here because of the shallow depth of field. Snapped this in the evening; I like the pattern of chain-link fencing, and this seems like a good angle to shoot it from. Enjoy, and don’t be imprisoned!

I added vignetting and contrast, and desaturated for a cold look.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/125, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-02T18:20:03-04, 20080602-222003rxt

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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: Sunrays 2

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Sunrays 2 — blue beams of sunshine pierce the clouds

An awesome blue sunset. I saw this while my Dad was driving, so I started snapping photos with a fast shutter speed out the window. By luck, I got the timing just right on this frame, including an interesting white fence and some nice palm trees.

I wanted the fence to stand out, as it matched the white rays well, so I dodged it in Photoshop. Then, I added color and contrast with the curves function, and brightened the sunrays. To color the text with the title and my name, I cropped a portion of the photo, stretched it to the size of the text, added a lot of contrast, and then set it as the fill pattern in PhotoFiltre Studio (I use it for text and borders, because it’s much more intuitive than Photoshop).
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Canon PowerShot A620, 1/640, F2.8, 7.3mm, ISO100, 2007-04-14T19:28:00-04, 2007-04-14_23h28m00

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More of the Sunrays series.

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: Fly Away

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Fly Away — an escaping balloon against an inviting sky

A helium balloon, escaping into the great blue beyond, in black and white. I got this balloon for my sixteenth birthday (2007-08-17), and by nine days later, it still was trying to get away, so I set it free and photographed it. I’ve given out print copies, but this is the first online publication. I hope you enjoy it.

I switched to black and white, cropped out tree branches that snuck into the frame, and made the sky and balloon almost black with the curves function.

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Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/100, F16, 18mm, ISO100, 2007-08-26T14:52:54-04, 2007-08-26_18h52m54

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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.