This weatherbeaten house outside of Caherdaniel caught my eye a few days ago. This is the kind of photo where your mileage will vary about how much you like it, but it grew on me. In fact, I briefly thought about doing a series of photos of weatherbeaten Irish houses, but after shooting a half dozen or so I called it quits. They just weren’t that good. This one really was uniquely interesting.

This picture, by the way, has been Photoshopped to within an inch of its life. I straightened it. I fixed the perspective to get the square-on look I wanted. I brightened the house itself. I eliminated an alarm system above the doorway. I added some color saturation to the foliage in front. And I used haze removal to give the sky a little bit of definition. Then, after it was all done and reduced to 2000 pixels, I sharpened it. Were these the right decisions? There are a thousand different ways you could manipulate this image, all with their own virtues. This is just the one I chose.

I should also mention that this house is for sale! Like most of the properties around here, it’s represented by Brid Moran, auctioneer, and I’m sure she’d be happy to entertain your offer. Just click here.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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