2009-12-20 Update: I now believe Jesus Christ is my personal savior, but what I’ve written below still has merit.
… or I’ll cross you right back! Not really, but that’s the best title I can think of for this photo. It’s a church at sunrise, with the ever-wonderful cross towering above.
I edited this in Adobe Camera Raw 4.0 exclusively. Here are the settings I used:
I thought about going for cool, bluish tones in the sky, but the golden yellows work better. As you can …
I’m going down a hypothetical path where abortion is ethical and just, despite knowing it isn’t. I will prove that even if my knowledge is false and abortion is ethical, one who goes down that “ethical” path reaches a dead end, the end result for which is tenfold worse than believing abortion is unethical. Finally, with plain-old logic, I’ll prove that abortion is the wrong choice either way.
First, let’s make the definition of “fetus” really clear. The American Heritage Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines it as this:
“In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to
…
The purpose of any good government is to protect the lives and property of the people. Property is money. Money must be solid. It must be free, in that it is independent of the nefarious deeds of plutocrats. It doesn’t matter how much free speech or free love you have. If you have no money, you have no property, and all your “freedoms” are worthless.
The Federal Reserve, masquerading as part of our government, bails out corporations that have gotten themselves far into debt. In theory, this protects the jobs of the people, because the corporation keeps going. How does the …
I went back to school yesterday. I’m blogging about my school life over at DaytonaState.org now, so take a look at that. The reason to split it up from here is because that site is more targeted, and ranks higher in Google and makes me more money. 
But I’ll be writing more here and posting a few photos this weekend. The learning is keeping me busy.
The fifth entry in the series: a burst of sunshine through the dark clouds. I like the power lines at the bottom-right… they sweep in at the right angle.
Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/4000, F4, 18mm, ISO100, 2008-08-11T17:21:08-04, 20080811-212108rxt
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 saw this sunset out the window on the Granada bridge over the Halifax river in Ormond Beach. I was a passenger in the car, so I was able to snap this out the window. It was quite dark, almost night. I had to go all the way up to ISO1600 and all the way down to F1.6 to get a 1/60 shutter speed, so the full size version is quite grainy, but it seems artful.
Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/60, F1.6, 50mm, ISO1600, 2008-08-15T20:20:47-04, 20080816-002047rxt
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!
This beautiful sunset caught my eye out the window. The skies here are just getting better and better. I ran out with my wide-angle lens (the kit lens) and started snapping different angles of it. It didn’t look like this to start, but I stuck around for ten minutes and the clouds came together in this odd formation. It looks like cotton candy, caramel flavored. I found it really interesting that the sun was like a spotlight, because it was dark outside of the clouds as you can see at the edges of this photo.
I …
This is my first post as a 17 year old. The pivotal birthday was 2008 August 17, a Sunday. My youth is just slipping away. I’ve written this list of seventeen things I’ve learned over the years.
I used to be fascinated with the color blue. Then when I was 6 I switched to red. Around 14 I switched back to blue again. Now I’m starting to like green (notice my website’s colors?).
Don’t count on being dedicated to writing, piano, blogging, or photography all your life. Don’t root yourself in material mediums, because it doesn’t matter …
I saw the golden colors flooding in through the window just a few hours ago, so I rain out and snapped this photo of the gorgeous sunset that was gracing my front yard. I haven’t seen a sunset this impressive before. The swirls of clouds were awesome, and went far above what you see in the frame. I couldn’t fit them all in even at 18mm, which is as wide as the Canon Rebel XTi kit lens would go.
I punched the contrast up in Photoshop. …
I’ve found a powerful and time-saving technique for responding to long-winded critiques and challenges from others.
Give a short answer.
Not because a short answer is better, but because there’s no need for a long answer. A lengthy, elegant, point-by-point essay can be interesting, but it’s just more of the same because you’re engaging the criticism. That’s boring and expected. You give me any argument, and I can come up with a logical, point-by-point answer why it’s wrong. But when you fail to attempt this at all, you cut like a knife through your opponent’s inquiries. Basically, you’re saying, “your points are …
