6 photos of a squirrel eating bread on a bench, the last being him running away with a piece of bread across the sidewalk… funny.

For editing, I processed the six separate images in Photoshop CS5, resized them to 1000×667 pixels, added a 4-pixel white border and 10-pixel black border around each image, and merged them together in PhotoFiltre Studio.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/160, F5.6, 135mm, ISO100, 2008-10-15T13:37:27-04, 20081015-173727rxt

Download the high-res JPEG (824.07KB) or (source images available upon request).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

A photogenic toad near our house… he did not hop away even after I took this picture. As you can see from the drops on the toad and blades of grass, it had just been raining.

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 is going to be a revolutionary year.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2006-02-03T15:12:58-05, 2006-02-03_15h12m58

Download the high-res JPEG (1.28MB) or download the source image (1.94MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

A dog waiting at the front door for his master… he would be yelling “let me in” if he could talk.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/24, F4.7, 17.2mm, ISO100, 2006-01-02T17:13:34-05, 2006-01-02_17h13m34

Download the high-res JPEG (1.11MB) or download the source image (1.65MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

This is a picture of Bill’s dog, Scrappy, from 2005. At the time, Bill was the owner of Angelo’s Pizzeria in Mims, Florida, but he sold the business in 2009 and is less involved now.

Scrappy was very well behaved and is beloved by his owner. In this portrait, he is looking out the window of a car, wondering if his master is going to take him somewhere.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/167, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-11-13T10:34:20-05, 2005-11-13_10h34m20

Download the high-res JPEG (834.52KB) or download the source image (1.91MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

A baby snake my father was trying to pick up with his glove. This is a new edit of a photo from 2005. I removed a lot of dirt on the glove and sidewalk using the spot healing brush. This snake is long dead, unless he managed to live over five years.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-03T20:25:08-04, 2005-10-03_20h25m08

Download the high-res JPEG (1.27MB) or download the source image (1.9MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

An ugly spider with red spikes.

Spiny Backed Orb Weaver (Gaster Acantha)

The most colorful and easily recognized Florida spider, having what looks like a white and black spotted shell on its back, and 6 pointy red spines. The web contains tufts of silk, probably to prevent birds from flying into it.

Females are 5mm to 10mm long, 10mm to 14mm wide. They hang in the center of the web.

The bite of the Spiny Backed Orb Weaver is not known to cause serious reactions in humans.

Thanks http://www.floridaorienteering.org/nature/spiders.htm.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-12-20T15:42:37-05, 2005-12-20_15h42m37

Download the high-res JPEG (1.54MB) or download the source image (1.75MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

This dog asks the questions, “Why are you looking at me? What makes me so special?”

The correct title of this photo is Why are You Looking at Me? but the ? mark is omitted due to technical restrictions.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-27T14:42:50-04, 2005-10-27_14h42m50

Download the high-res JPEG (1.94MB) or download the source image (1.95MB).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp and link here.

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.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 1/800, F2.8, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-10-16T16:35:58-04, 20091016-203558rxt

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.

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.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/320, F5.6, 122mm, ISO800, 2009-10-10T12:55:17-04, 20091010-165517rxt

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 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.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/160, F4, 38mm, ISO400, 2008-12-31T09:12:29-05, 20081231-141229rxt

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.