New Grandson

It has been a few hectic days. Wednesday, we were still camping. That night we got word that our daughter-in-law was having some labour pains and they were doing a test and then would try and stop the labour because she wasn't yet at term. Thursday morning the cell phone rang about 6:30 and we were told that our grandson had just been born, about 6 weeks premature. He was doing well but there was a need to send him somewhere better equipped and so he and Mom were flown to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver that afternoon with Dad and his other two boys following by car.

We packed up the trailer and headed home. Friday, after my wife's dentist app't. we headed to Vancouver to see the little guy and offer our assistance to help take care of the other two grandchildren. My daughter had headed over right away and was a real angel by looking after them while my son Neil was dealing with his wife and new son being admitted.

So now it's late Saturday night, the two grandsons, Nathan and Ben are fast asleep as is Grandma, and I'm heading there soon. The last couple of days seem like a week or more but things are going well. Lucas Jeremy Paul is doing fine, just needed some help with his lungs that were fully developed but still not mature enough to manage fully. He is cute, although I haven't seen him with his eyes open. Mom (Jen) was discharged today and her and Neil are at the Easter Seal house nearer the hospital so they can transport breast milk during the night.

They let me take my camera in when I went to see Lucas and I took several shots of him in the incubator. This is one of them. Life is precious and wonderful and the hospital and workers are fabulous and it is wonderful that Lucas is doing so well.

Let's Go Hollywood

One way to learn a new program or technique is to actually do tutorials that you read about. These pictures were made by following a technique in December's Photoshop User Magazine presented by "the Lad", Corey Barker. It is titled "Let's Go Hollywood" and is based on a movie poster effect that he saw for the movie Aeon Flux. So, I gave it a shot on a couple of pictures I had of my grandsons, Nathan and Ben.

Who knew Photoshop could be so much fun. Well worth the investment.

Portraits of Sisters

I am continuing to play around with Elements in preparation for upgrading to CS3 some day. I've been working on portraits I took for my church directory and came up with this shot of Mackenzie and Jenna. I kind of like it. The black and white look was made using a gradient mask layer. I was surprised at how it turned out.

Portrait of a House builder

I volunteered to take portraits of people in my church for a church directory so that I can learn and possibly add it to my business interests. During a lull, my daughter showed up and wanted to borrow my truck to pick up a compacter because she and her husband are building a house and that's what she's working on today. She looked pretty cute in dirty, grubby clothes and I made her sit for a quick shot in exchange for borrowing the truck. The result is below even though she said, "don't put it up on the internet or anything. Too bad, Terri. It's going up on Facebook next.