I support artists by giving away my photography.

Enjoy and leave me some comments!

A 1-second exposure of a red laser pointer that I moved in this pattern. This is the same type of photo as Fiery Hearts, at the same place. The line is dimmer because this photo is exposed less.

The break in the laser on the left is the indent for the window. There is a line of reflections in the center which looks interesting.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1″, F2, 50mm, ISO800, 2009-11-01T20:56:42-05, 20091102-015642rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

I composed this song on the computer last night. Lullaby in the key of E. 24 measures, 1 minute. I haven’t even played it on the piano, but you can listen to the synthesized version and perhaps learn it yourself if my note patterns are not too exotic.

Download synthesized MP3 (1:00, 1MB)
Download sheet music (PDF, 2 pg., 30KB)
Download MIDI sequence (1:00, 3KB)
Download Sibelius 5 score (42KB)

I renamed this site to “Thripp Photography” instead of “Brilliant Photography and Personal Development by Richard X. Thripp.” I also added disclaimers to articles including Egregious Failures, Becoming Evil, Dumb People, Smart People, and Smarter People, The Perks of Having a Job, and Becoming a Vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian now as I’m eating fish again for protein and because it’s good for the mind. I feel awful that I’ve written articles that denigrate people, families, worklife, or society and I apologize to anyone I’ve misled or misdirected. I set myself up as an expert on personal growth when at this point I feel like a lost child. The more you know the less you know.

I will leave everything I’ve written online as I’m sure people are still finding it useful or entertaining, but use common sense before you make rash decisions in your life. I’ve dropped out of college, I can’t sleep, and I’m making myself a burden upon my parents. Sometimes the middle path really is the best one.

Anyway, I don’t want to sound too full of crap or self-pity but I don’t want to keep projecting that I’m super intelligent or evolved or any better than anyone else. I will leave the personal development category up but do not consider me to be personally developed as I am probably the least personally developed person you’ll find. There is an irony in life that the loudest people are often the most ignorant. Not that we can point out and decry ignorance as easily as we’d like.

I encourage you all to watch Alex Jones because he knows what’s really going on in this world (Ron Paul too). Eat your apricot kernels to avoid cancer, and don’t buy into global warming. As my father says, the Atlantic Seaboard is having record snowfall right now. Temperatures are getting colder! But warmer temperatures would in fact be better because we could grow more crops. This planet is too cold overall.

I won’t be writing much more about personal growth and I won’t be doing much more besides taking pictures of things and posting them. Good luck all.

My neighbor’s yard on a foggy morning two days ago. I like the fence gate with the dogs on it. Editing was adding a lot of contrast and vignetting. The weather in central Florida has been dreary but warm for December, although I do not attribute that to global warming but rather normal climactic fluctuations.

See also: A Morning of Fog, which I took near the same location.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1250, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-12-15T09:23:17-05, 20091215-142317rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

Proposed in the United Nations and the U.S. Congress is a tax on all carbon dioxide emissions. Whenever we light our wood-burning stove to heat our house, carbon atoms in the wood are being oxidized to release heat and carbon dioxide. Whenever we breathe in and out, we convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. A carbon tax is no more than a slave tax—a yoke around the necks of industry which will kill a billion people in the third world. Gasoline and power bills will easily go up 10%, and the cumulative effects will be even worse at the supermarket and the office stores.

The Carbon Tax Center postulates that “a permanent and increasing U.S. carbon tax is essential.” The theory is that burning carbon causes the Earth to become warmer, and that any influence we have on the Earth’s environment must be negative. Therefore, the ultimate solution is human extinction. We all know the Earth would be completely perfect without our presence. Short of that mass suicide, modern feudalism to our elitist overlords for our carbon sins will do (carbon is one of the four major organic molecules along with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen). The mindset is we are a cancer upon the planet, and every time a baby is born mother Earth weeps. Environmentalism is an excuse to take away our sovereignty, our property, and our wombs as gifts to the state, in the name of saving the Earth. This is why popular media promotes euthanasia, abortion rights, and one-child per family policies. Human life is cheap because we don’t belong here anyway. We evolved from monkeys as an evolutionary mistake, because monkeys were never supposed to be this smart.

The science anthropogenic climate change rests on is shaky. Emails leaked from the Climactic Research Unit in the University of East Anglia reveal that the Earth’s temperature has been declining since 2000. Scientists there have to come up with tricks to “hide the decline” in temperature—also known as fudging the numbers or cheating, to support the global warming agenda. Then the U.N. takes the C.R.U.’s reports and cites them as the excuse to enslave humanity. During the Medieval Warming Period, It was far warmer than it is now. The sun goes through warming and cooling cycles and right now we are in a cooling cycle. There is nothing you can do about that. More carbon dioxide does not cause global warming; global warming causes elevated carbon dioxide levels. Besides, the warming of the planet by 1 or 2 degrees F would be better for farmers. The Earth is too cold. Sea levels may rise one or two inches. Not 50 feet. The Great Lakes are not preparing to drain into the Gulf of Mexico, nor will San Francisco be 50 feet underwater by the 50th presidential election.

Our carbon output amounts to about 0.28% of the planet’s. Volcanos go off all the time. Florida is supposed to be on fire half the year. Polar bears are not dying and penguins are swimming better than ever. If you want to talk about damaging the environment, talk about the 200,000 troops we have bombing Afghanistan, killing citizens for no reason other than bloodlust. We fight wars with no enemies against people who have no weapons besides the weapons we give them, and then at home we talk of instituting crippling taxes and killing off the elderly. The only terrorists in this country are the elitsts on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and several others, who continue to ram fascism down our throats.

The Constitution is dying and our freedoms are disappearing. The police dress in black and engage us as enemy combatants. As the artificial dollar bubble bursts, property taxes, mandatory car insurance, vehicle registrations, garbage pick up, sewage and water services, and power and phone services skyrocket. The people are being trodden over. Motorcycle cops are mere tax collectors, and we never question them, lest we be tased or clubbed.

We are headed for national socialism. With carbon taxes, even more of our money will go to the state and we will have to count on the state to take care of all our problems. It won’t happen. Healthcare is going to get even worse. You better pray you don’t get sick. They want to kill us with fluoride in the water, mercury in the vaccines, and barium in the chemical trails they continually spray on us (with no remorse for mother Earth). Some 2000 nuclear weapons test detonations in the past 70 years have done far worse for the environment than smokestacks or gas-guzzling SUVs.

Wake up and watch the Alex Jones channel. Start eating apricot kernels to avoid cancer. The green movement is death-worship, and we must thwart the death-worshipers before they kill us all. Population control starts with you.

Carbon taxes are the secular version of the Catholic indulgences of the 1400s. Carbon taxes will be used to set up a global government with Pope Benedict’s blessing, and there will be no escape. Buy your shotguns now.

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

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

Some apple slices covered in honey baking in the oven. I shot this when I was cooking with friends for the International Food Festival at Daytona State College’s DeLand campus Nov. 2009. I wasn’t there for the festival and we didn’t sell much food, but at least this photo came of it.

The glass on the front of the oven had a speckled pattern which, combined with the heat, makes the inside of the oven foggy.

For editing, I just added contrast and changed the white balance in Adobe Camera Raw before importing into Photoshop. I didn’t do any spot editing. There’s a lot of grain since this was dark and I shot at ISO800, F2.2 with my 50mm lens. Using a flash wasn’t an option at all since that would have bounced off the glass.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/50, F2.2, 50mm, ISO800, 2009-11-17T22:18:02-05, 20091118-031802rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

The last of nine photos with Amour. She’s handing a Pikachu doll to her friend Jerica. This is actually a remote for an old Pikachu VCR… it has play, stop, fast-forward, and rewind buttons on Pikachu’s hands and feet, a power button on the Pokemon’s stomach, a remote sensor on the back of his head, and AA batteries inside.

Jerica and Amour couldn’t help but laugh.

I wish Amour good fortune in her modeling and psychology career, and the same for Jerica in her field of study.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/1000, F3.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T09:41:27-05, 20091102-144127rxt

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

Amour with her friend Jerica O’Neal, acting all serious. I have a photo of both ladies smiling but it doesn’t work… there was no balance.

Amour is the noun for love in French, which is very serious.

Jerica had to stand on her toes while Amour crouched down or they’d be blocking each other. I couldn’t have them stand side to side either.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/500, F4, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-11-02T10:12:27-05, 20091102-151227rxt