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).

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 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.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:55:37-04, 20091016-205537rxt

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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.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet efs-18-55-mm], 1/640, F7.1, 55mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T18:33:25-04, 20091010-223325rxt

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The foggy country! This is across the field on LPGA blvd. when driving toward the intersection with U.S. 17-92 in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

There is a Bud Light beer truck off in the distance. You can make out the letters on the high-res version.

I thought of leaving this in color but the drab colors weren’t adding much to the photo… it looks much better in black and white. I also enhanced the fog (dodge tool in Photoshop) and added some contrast.

I took this from our van while my father was driving. My Twitter readers may know that I just started driving this week; I’m just on parking lots and back-roads now until I get a feel for driving. My learner’s license lasts until my 27th birthday in 2018.

I haven’t been posting photos recently, but I just scheduled 12 for the next 12 days so keep coming back to visit!

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/250, F3.5, 35mm, ISO800, 2009-10-10T07:14:46-04, 20091010-111446rxt

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Light bulbs at the makeup room back stage of Daytona State College’s theater. I snuck in after hours and saw one light bulb was much brighter than the others. Instant photo opportunity! I’ve published similar photos before (one out of many concept), but this is slightly different.

Below the light bulbs are mirrors. You can see your reflection in all of them if you stand in the middle of the room. I may use the room for photography if I find a model.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/100, F10, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-09-18T15:34:52-04, 20090918-193452rxt

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What happens in Central Park stays in Central Park.

This is on West Granada in Ormond Beach, Florida, on the corner of Orchard St. There is also a sign for Harbor Baptist Church.

I liked this arrangement of signs, and it became better when I switched to black and white in Photoshop. This photo has no meaning, but you can read your own meaning into it.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/1250, F5.6, 132mm, ISO400, 2009-01-01T10:15:03-05, 20090101-151503rxt

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Another photo from Gemini Springs park; this time, of stagnant water. Mold and shrubbery can grow on stagnant water. That’s why most stationary ponds have fountains: the water must be kept flowing to stop bacteria from festering.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/200, F3.5, 28mm, ISO400, 2008-12-31T09:16:19-05, 20081231-141619rxt

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Downstream from the springs at the Gemini Springs park in Gemini Springs, Florida. There is a lot of algae and that tree is precariously perched.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/500, F3.5, 35mm, ISO400, 2008-12-31T09:13:38-05, 20081231-141338rxt

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White flowers on top of a green plant out back of the cafeteria at Daytona State College (main campus).

On auto my Canon Rebel XTi over-exposed the flowers majorly; I had to set the exposure bias way down to get them in range. I’ve titled this “Dark Sunshine” because everything but the flowers is dark.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/2000, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-09-18T15:43:44-04, 20090918-194344rxt

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I have no idea what this flower is. I photographed it on one of my morning walks. It was by the road three feet into someone’s yard.

There’s no good way to search for the name of a flower with its picture. I tried searches on Google like “white flower pink fringe long petals florida” but I had no luck at all. You practically have to be a florist to identify flowers.

So I’m titling this “Not a Daisy.” I’m not going to bother asking random friends and family if they know the name of this flower.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/40, F5.6, 132mm, ISO400, 2009-09-12T07:44:30-04, 20090912-114430rxt

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Pink Flowers at Lowe’s, against a blue sky with contrails out-of-focus, sun shining down.

I debated the title for a few minutes and went with it even though the flowers don’t appear to be battling for the sun; they all have plenty of light. They’re quite tall though, which is a trait of plants in crowded areas. When a tree is surrounded by other trees, it will grow straight up to get sunlight, but a tree alone will branch out because it has plenty of light. Plants are semi-intelligent.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/500, F5.6, 135mm, ISO100, 2009-03-02T14:26:54-05, 20090302-192654rxt

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Unlike in Publix’s ads, tomatoes can be very ugly. I shot this at the local produce market and you can see spots all over them. Granted, I added contrast, color, and vignetting, but I didn’t bother editing out all the spots like the professionals do. Normally I’d call it laziness, but today I’m calling it realism. These are tomatoes without silicone… no, that has nothing to do with boobs.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/30, F4, 44mm, ISO800, 2009-08-13T15:51:35-04, 20090813-195135rxt

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Purple Morning Glory flowers at 8 A.M. By the afternoon these all fall off. The next day, they bloom again. Definitely an interesting flower.

Instead of doing a macro, I did a wide shot characteristic of a new photographer. Newbies never get close enough. However, I like this shot because no flower is special. There are just a whole lot of them, and the viewer is an equal distance from most of them. In photography, every rule can be broken.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/200, F4, 41mm, ISO100, 2009-08-20T08:18:53-04, 20090820-121853rxt

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A pair of Barbie skates at the thrift store, long outgrown.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/50, F4, 38mm, ISO800, 2009-08-17T14:00:19-04, 20090817-180019rxt

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A red Hibiscus against the sun. This is an awfully gay flower so I’ve dubbed it “flaming.”

I had to remove so many dust spots from the sky. They don’t show up normally, but with a clean blue sky at 127mm and F14, they were quite prominent. They must be in the middle of my lens or on the sensor. Photoshop’s spot healing brush came in handy.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/320, F14, 127mm, ISO400, 2009-08-17T14:53:53-04, 20090817-185353rxt

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The swamps of Ormond Beach! Took this on my 18th birthday out the car window. There is water and a lot of dead grass.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/3200, F3.5, 28mm, ISO200, 2009-08-17T14:36:04-04, 20090817-183604rxt

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A pair of peaceful bongos. One has the yin-yang symbol on top. I don’t recognize the other symbol. These belong to the QUANTA 26 student Madison Bernard. He plays at the Daytona State College clock tower in the afternoon.

We had a good background with the bricks. This was meant to be an editorial photo, but I’m finding them artistic!

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/500, F3.5, 35mm, ISO100, 2009-09-02T13:08:37-04, 20090902-170837rxt

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Graves Avenue in Deltona, FL, with a cloudy blue sky overhead and the sun reflecting off the dark road. I could tell this would make a good photo once I added contrast on the computer, so I snapped this through the windshield with the closest thing I have to a telephoto lens.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/1000, F8, 130mm, ISO100, 2009-09-06T18:42:35-04, 20090906-224235rxt

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A jar of Smucker’s Simply Fruit Blackberry Jam at Wal-Mart, with other jars behind, including some delicious strawberry jelly. I took this with my 50mm lens at F2. The background is very blurry because we are close to the jars and the lens is wide open. At the same aperture, you have a larger depth of field when the focal point is far from the lens, and a smaller depth of field when the focal point is close.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/100, F2, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-13T11:06:48-04, 20080713-150648rxt

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The lighthouse in New Smyrna Beach, at 3 A.M. This is a ten second exposure so I got the light spinning around several times. I didn’t bring a tripod. I just set the camera on the concrete by the river, being careful not to let it fall in.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 10″, F3.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-07-21T02:46:55-04, 20080721-064655rxt

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