I just got a call from Erin, who is supposed to be going to the hospital tonight so that they can induce her labor. They are on their way to the hospital right now because she started bleeding and they may have to do an emergency c-section. Erin can still feel the baby kicking so she thinks everything will be okay, but as you can imagine, we're all a little worried. The plan was for me to stay the night with Braylin and take her to the hospital tomorrow to meet her new little brother or sister. Her new little brother or sister whom she insists is going to be named "Fruit". She love fruit. I'm still going to go and stay with her, the baby just may be arriving a little sooner than expected! So please, say a prayer for Erin and the baby!

Here's some pictures I took of Braylin the other day, in one of her last days as an "only child".

My favorite

Telln' Uncle Tim how it is!

Searching for bugs, one of her very favorite things to do

Yes, it's true! Would I lie to those of you who so kindly support me by checking my blog and seeing what I'm up to? Of course not! The whole truth is that in 2007 I took a Special Projects Photography class at Oakland Community College in Royal Oak. The digital department there has a great professor, Carrie Atelier. She has the class work published as a book each semester. The work that I did for that class is work that I love and am really proud of, so I thought that I would share it with those of you who haven't seen it. If you would like to purchase or download (downloading is free) the whole book it can be seen at here SPECIAL PROJECTS: MAN & NATURE

Two side notes:
1) The book was published using LULU a company that lets you self publish books. I don't know many details but, pretty neat idea if any one is interested.
2) OCC has a great photography program if anyone is looking for classes. From what I understand it has the last color film lab left in the state, and a pretty extensive list of classes available, pretty inexpensive too. Not to mention that the professors are all photographers themselves, so they know what they're talking about.

This is the inside cover, with my photo, no it's not the cover, but it's the inside cover, and it's really close to the cover ; )

This last one is my favorite! Aren't they so cute?!

We are such proud parents here in our household! A while back I posted a picture of Lucy with her ears flying in the wind called "our own flying nun". Well, our little Luce caught the frisbee for the first time yesterday and man does she fly! I, of course, had to run out there and document the landmark moment with my camera! Heaven help our children when we have them!

Waiting patiently, isn't she good?

Ok dad, come on now:

This one is my favorite:

She really is off the ground that much, Photoshop had nothing to do with it:

One final one of a landing, she bends in crazy ways to catch the frisbee:

My beautiful machine that I work on is a MacBook Pro. Those of you who know me well know that I have an unhealthy love for my laptop. It's just so pretty, and fun, and smart, and well you get the idea! :) Well being just a laptop, the hard drive is only 160gb and all these raw files take up so much space. My poor lil machine was full to capacity and Photoshop was having a heck of a time doing anything. Hence, the break without any posts. I have however purchased another external hard drive and everything is now backed up twice, so I feel a lil less nervous about deleting some files and making room to work. Hopefully I will now be overloading my few faithful readers with a multitude of posts! Yip-ee!

Tim has this amazing group of friends that he has been friends with since grade school. At 37 that is very rare and makes him very fortunate. Most of them now are married with kids and busy schedules make it so that they don't see each other as much as they once did. They still manage to keep in touch and see each other on a pretty consistent basis. Every year for Memorial Day the group all gathers at Stoney Creek to bbq and hang out. For me it was a great opportunity to sneak some fun pics of the kids. Here are some, but I will be posting some more later. Man are they cute!

Lauri, my youngest sister, emailed me the other day from where she is doing research to inquire about the pics of our "family band". I had forgotten all about them! Anyone who knows us knows that me and my three siblings can get a little nutty sometimes. We were all at Heidi's house a couple of weeks ago. Tommy (our baby brother) has a new, very old, very cool accordion. However, no one knows how to play it, that didn't stop us all from trying though! Next thing you know everyone is trying to play all the different instruments that Tommy owns. The spit that must have been swapped by those who tried to play the horn...Eww!

Lately I have been having an internal struggle that I am going to share with you right now. I have always been a huge fan of straight, pure photography, basically images that are unedited save color correction, sharpening etc. The stuff you would do in a dark room. Henri Cartier Bresson is one of my biggest inspirations and favorite photographers. He never even cropped out of camera. Henri Cartier Bresson at Magnum Photos

On the other hand, I have also become a huge fan of using textures and editing photos to make them look old etc. Everything you read recommends that a photographer pick a style and stay with it. Trying to choose only one way just isn't me. So for now, this indecision is my style. It probably represents me better anyway. A little tradition with a little crazy creativity thrown in.

There's more to come, but here's a preview of the band