I was thinking of adding a big picture of Hugh Laurie in the background… but it’s not that House. Just blue flowers with a house in the background. I think the house is for sale.

This is a weird angle. I’m not sure if it works well, but it seems different. The sky was dark as though it was going to rain. I made the colors warmer on the computer. If they’re too blue the scene feels cold. The focus is on the flowers at the back, so the ones at the bottom are blurry.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T17:07:31-04, 20091016-210731rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Street signs near my house. Not far from Flag Lane and Par Avenue is Golf Avenue. The nearest golf course is a couple miles away, so these names are weird.

Nevertheless these signs are worthy of a picture. I used my umbrella to deflect my camera’s flash, as it would have been too bright otherwise.

Flag Ln. or Par Av. Which one will you choose?

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/100, F9, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:50:13-04, 20091016-205013rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:42:25-04, 20091016-204225rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Someone did some off-road driving recently. I saw this truck while walking… Almost looks like the owner sprayed mud on it.

It was about to rain anyway, so all the mud is surely gone.

Happy Halloween everyone! Don’t worship death. Sorry I don’t have a pumpkin photo for you… Well, here are pumpkins I photographed 4 years ago.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/60, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:39:15-04, 20091016-203915rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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One of my neighbors takes his dogs for a walk every day. This is the black and brown chihuahua. I’m not sure if he was looking at me or my camera but he stayed a good distance back so I could snap his picture.

Coming out of the camera this was too dark, so I brightened the exposure in my RAW editor before importing the file into Photoshop.

Be sure to import your RAW photos into Photoshop in 16-bit color Adobe or ProPhoto RGB is you’re going to do substantial color or contrast edits. With 16 bits per channel, Photoshop has 65,536 discrete color values (2^16) to work with in each channel (red/green/blue). The standard 8 bits per channel only gives 256 discrete values (2^8), which makes color banding more likely after large edits. In Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 you can click the blue text at the bottom to change bit-depth and colorspaces.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/800, F2.8, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-10-16T16:35:58-04, 20091016-203558rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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I shot this sunset from the backseat while my friend was driving. This is on West International Speedway Boulevard right near Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

On the left is the rear-view mirror and at the bottom you see the windshield wipers. That’s why I’m titling this Driving Sunset.

I cloned out a big electronic sign at the bottom-right. It was the college’s sign, but it was bright blue and annoying. You can still see the clone marks if you brighten the photo considerably, but no one will notice normally.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/500, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-15T18:53:32-04, 20091015-225332rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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I shot this on an evening walk in my neighborhood. The sunset and white car paired well in my eyes.

I brightened the car and darkened the sunset in Photoshop for balance. The car was much darker than the sunset, but I was able to bring the colors out since I always shoot RAW. The files are 10MB each, which is a lot bigger than JPEGs, but it’s worth it for creative flexibility.

This was my first outing with the XTi kit lens in a long time. Because it’s EF-S and goes down to 18mm, it has a much wider field of view than my EF 28-135mm lens, which I enjoyed.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet efs-18-55-mm], 1/60, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T18:31:03-04, 20091010-223103rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Puffy clouds over a road around noon-time. I just took this through the windshield while my Dad was driving, which reduces contrast. In Photoshop I punched up the contrast while making sure not to white out the clouds.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/640, F6.3, 38mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T16:04:22-04, 20091010-200422rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Minnie Pearl, my uncle’s dog. She’s about 10 years old and has gone through a lot, but she is fiercely loyal. She barks at me every time I go near her. Minnie is watching her master attentively in this shot.

I took this from a distance. Since I have a Canon Rebel XTi with an APC-size sensor (1.6 crop factor), this photo has a 195mm field of view when compared to full-frame or 35mm film photography. My lens was at 122mm, according to the metadata.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/320, F5.6, 122mm, ISO800, 2009-10-10T12:55:17-04, 20091010-165517rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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This is a photo I took over three years ago of a bunch of electronics. I’m only going to post old work this month… stuff that I’ve never posted on this blog. 2009-10-12: Eh, scrap that. I put this photo on deviantART in 2006 June.

I remember this being very hard to set up. I had a junky point-and-shoot with no ISO control, so I was stuck with about a 1/15 shutter speed. In one hand I held a spotlight while in the other I held the camera. It was hard to get a clear shot, and getting everything in frame took about two hours of moving things around.

The title is a joke. Most of the stuff in this photo is old, failed technology, that obviously won’t be in our future. Included: an AOL 3.0 CD, an SDRAM stick and an even older type of RAM, a PS/2 mouse with a bunch of old adapters, Nintendo e-Reader cards circa 2003, a VHS tape, 8mm Panasonic camcorder tapes, an onion, a fork, a Mattel JuiceBox, an HP LightScribe blank CD, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles folder, a Nintendo Zapper lightgun from the 1980s NES game Duck Hunt, a floppy disk, chopsticks, a calculator, a drawing I made of a water cup, a large audio jack, a shrimp flavor packet from ramen noodles, an old TracFone, red thumbtacks, an old sound card, a dial-up modem (PCI), a Dinacell battery (Duracell knockoff), lip balm, and a Kodachrome slide from the 1950s.

[sniplet fuji-a360], 1/12, F2.8, 6mm, ISO100, 2006-06-14T21:39:02-04, 2006-06-15_01h39m02

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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A product at Wal-Mart. I think these were post-it notes on a roll but I don’t remember. I just liked the colors. They were near the frozen foods.

Any product you don’t know the name of is a “widget.”

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/100, F3.2, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-03-01T12:47:23-05, 20090301-174723rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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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

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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A dog on a leash at Gemini Springs park in Florida. I don’t remember the owner, but the dog was enthusiastic. He looks like a Yorkshire Terrier with white hair.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/160, F4, 38mm, ISO400, 2008-12-31T09:12:29-05, 20081231-141229rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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