I run into a lot of photography purists, but I don’t believe any of it myself. Photography is nothing but a series of manipulations. You’re manipulating the scene by composing it any differently than a non-photographer. You manipulate the appearance of the scene by zooming in or out. You manipulate your viewers’ outlooks by composing to exclude unsightly objects. Motion blur, shallow depth of field, under or over exposing… these are all creative manipulations on your part. You may not have as much creative control as with painting, but you can still be quite expressive. But creativity isn’t “pure.” If we can define any solid definition for “pure” photography, they’re going to be dull, boring snapshots that no one wants to look at. Don’t do pure photography. Anyone can do pure photography; it takes a real master to do impure photography.

The great thing is, when you embrace impure photography, a whole world of creativity opens to you. Pure photographers are constantly wasting time with ethical debates: is it okay to make the world look purplish in Photoshop, or only through the white balance setting in-camera? Can I crop my photos, or is that misrepresenting the scene? Can I add contrast to a scene that obviously needs it, or do I need to stick to my limiting philosophy? Impure photographers have no such shackles. The “code of ethics” is: do whatever is right to make the photo beautiful. No one cares if you change the white balance. Adding contrast is great. Brightening teeth? Spot-editing blemishes? Sure. It makes people look like they should. It isn’t a question of keeping the image true to the camera sensor; the goal is to produce an image true to the vision in your head. Creative photographs come from people, not …

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This is what the pool looks like… at night. Got up at 4 A.M. to shoot this during my vacation; I set the camera on the edge near the pool, dialed in a 30-second exposure, set the timer, and then waited. There were some lights on in the house on the left, which gave nice light. You can see the trees are blurred from the wind, as is the water in the pool. Ready for a swim?

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 30″, F3.5, 18mm, ISO800, 2008-06-29T03:50:44-04, 20080629-075044rxt

Download the 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 here.

I’ve been wondering what the Florida lifestyle I’ve been hearing so much about is, but I’ve found it here. You may not know it, but the Florida lifestyle involves lots of bugs. There were plenty of flies flying around as flies sometimes do, but I shooed them away to snap this shot of an orange smoothie by the pool. I went with a blue border for this photo. Never done that before, but it fits the image so well.

I added contrast, removed specks of dirt from the glass, and touched up the color on the orange slice.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/2500, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2008-06-28T14:16:13-04, 20080628-181613rxt

Download the 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 here.

Through the eyes of a dog. This is my aunt’s dog named Joseph; I set the camera on the carpet and snapped this of him staring at it. I was lucky to get his eyes in focus. He looks sad and thoughtful.

I edited some dirt away from his eyes, darkened the corners, and added contrast.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/25, F2.5, 50mm, ISO400, 2008-06-26T15:37:03-04, 20080626-193703rxt

Download the 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 here.

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

Download the 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 here.

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

Download the 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 here.

A bolt of lightning flashes through the dark sky. This was from the storm during my vacation. My grandmother forbade me from going outside ( ), 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

Download the 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 here.