This is a picture of a motocross stunt cyclist at the Orange County Fair. It is basically an invention of Photoshop, since the raw picture is almost completely black to the naked eye with the exception of the six floodlights. However, by playing around with the lighting and the exposure curves and so forth, eventually you can sometimes get an interesting picture out of nothing.

One of them, anyway. The other couple of dozen I took were hopeless no matter what I did. But you only need one.

July 13, 2018 — Costa Mesa, California

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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