A triangle drawn with an ultraviolet laser pointer with an 8″ exposure on a tripod. It was hard to get the sides right, but I think laser pointers are a lot of fun for photos.

This was on the night of the lunar eclipse, 2010-12-21. I was getting bored waiting for the eclipse to reach totality so I did this.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 50mm 1:1.4, 8/1, F2.5, 50mm, ISO1600, 2010-12-21T02:07:35-05, 20101221-070735rxt

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

A macro of four sharpened pencils against a purple sunset. You’ve got all the essential colors here… red, purple, green, and blue.

Sharpened Pencils 1-3 are really embarrassing, so I won’t be posting them.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/2, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO250, 2006-01-18T18:22:17-05, 2006-01-18_18h22m17

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

We really get some amazing sunsets in Florida. As always, editing helped this one along, but it was breathtaking to begin with.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/65, F3.8, 10.8mm, ISO64, 2006-01-05T17:46:52-05, 2006-01-05_17h46m52

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

A purple morning glory flower against the morning sunshine.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/1429, F4.7, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2005-11-23T10:04:18-05, 2005-11-23_10h04m18

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

More of the Sunshine series.

Macro of purple berries covered in pollen. These are probably poisonous.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/30, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-10-25T12:34:38-04, 2005-10-25_12h34m38

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

A vivid pink sunset from September 2005, heavily edited. At the time I believed editing produced “fake” photos but now I know better.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/21, F2.8, 5.8mm, ISO100, 2005-09-09T19:50:41-04, 2005-09-09_19h50m41

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

Purple Morning Glory flowers at 8 A.M. By the afternoon these all fall off. The next day, they bloom again. Definitely an interesting flower.

Instead of doing a macro, I did a wide shot characteristic of a new photographer. Newbies never get close enough. However, I like this shot because no flower is special. There are just a whole lot of them, and the viewer is an equal distance from most of them. In photography, every rule can be broken.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F4, 41mm, ISO100, 2009-08-20T08:18:53-04, 20090820-121853rxt

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

After the sun went down, the clouds still looked great. Shot this last Friday, 2009-09-04, from the car.

Canon Rebel XTi, EF 28-135mm, 1/200, F3.5, 28mm, ISO800, 2009-09-04T19:40:41-04, 20090904-234041rxt

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

Lilac (purple) flowers at the Daytona State College campus. These aren’t lilacs, but I like the name so I’m using it to refer to the color.

A friend volunteered to let me borrow his lens: a Sigma EF 105mm 1:2.8. I have it till next week, so I’ve been taking pictures of stuff with the different perspective it offers. Everything’s so close; I can’t get any sort of landscapes with this. But it’s interesting to focus on the details, and I can get closer to flowers than I can with the kit lens.

While I take good care of my camera and lenses, one of the worries in borrowing a lens–or anything for that matter–is that it will break in your possession, or you’ll break it by accident. Breaking your own stuff isn’t so bad as breaking someone else’s stuff, because then you (generally) feel obligated to replace it. What happens more often is the lender will say you broke it when you didn’t. Or if anything goes wrong with it in a period of one month after you return it, the lender blames it on you. I’m not sure why this happens, but it seems to be a common human trait.

I believe it’s rooted in fear. We want a scapegoat for everything. People may even subconsciously lend items they know are about to break, just so they can blame the borrower when the inevitable happens. Obviously, this is something that you and me must work on overcoming. Most people are reasonable and down-to-Earth already; I don’t consider borrowing a lens from a friend high-risk. But, I don’t borrow by contract if it’s reasonable to buy the item instead. Contracts are bad because they’re generally with people you don’t know; it’s much better to lend an …

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The fourth entry in the series, containing four of the respectable spheres. You already knew that from the informative title, though.

I was innovating with placement of the still life here; one is at the front, two far back, and one back even further. It’s pleasing to my eyes, as is the contrast between the sky reflections and dark marbles, even if the table goes to white.

I added contrast, removed dust, and kept the blues under control, as normal.

Fujifilm FinePix A360, 1/185, F2.81, 5.8mm, ISO64, 2006-05-31T14:21:36-04, 2006-05-31_14h21m36

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More of the Blue Marbles series.