It's never any fun when I go see  these guys. Uggh...or even them OR them.

   On a serious note, it was not a happy day when I was told about what happened to my 2 nephrews. I've loved all my life, but when they went into the hospital for some minor surgery, there was a problem with the anesthesia, and complications arose. The doctors tried and tried to fix the problem, but could not.They both wound up disfigured...and as sad as I feel at this moment, I'd like to pay tribute to their life. So Raleigh and Roy...this is for you.

Raleigh and Roy

..Well, not really!!!
More water on rocks and the sound they made.
~~~Splish~~~  
~~~Splash~~~
~~~Sploosh~~~
~~~Spleesh~~~
~~~Bloop~~~

 Collins Lake Circa 2006.

Latest trip with the 26 foot trailer we have...

   We brought Matthew's cousins Roy and Raliegh to the lake. Those kids are inseparable. They brought the raft and went out waaaaayy across to the other side. I'm in the market for a zoom, still... I took my binoculars and put up to the lens. Here's what I got. That's the boys in that yellow raft!!! The two brown dots in front of the raft are Raliegh and Matthew's heads...theyr'e kicking in the water.Roy is inside!
   As I was walking along the lake, a light wind picked up, and down at my feet fell a leaf.  I thought to myself that I gotta show my friends this leaf. Don't know why, but I was just inspired to do so. It is my entry into the challenge:gravity is the invisible force that we dont see , but see the reactions to it. Hope you enjoy them.  

   Some odds and ends....
Hybiscus ...from my backyard
For Cherish ...a nick-knack from Cherish's desk
Man In the Mirror ...a Harly Davidson in the work parking lot

Thumbnail ...my sister Sue in a bad capture  

last sunday, we skipped church and went on a family hike to radnor lake. the two  boys  were ready to go. We took the llake trail and saw a lot of wildlife there. It was surprising because the boys were not very quiet. The last part of the trail is a bridge over a dam and there was a momma goose watching over her newly hatched while papa stood guard.

It was all a nice break from the crazy schedules we had been on the last month.

*The first two shots of the deer are blurry because they were pretty far off to bring into focus, although a tripod would have helped. In the last two deer shots, both deer were only about 15 feet off the trail from us.

Here is a shot I took of my boys walking together.

I never seem to be able to get a "walking away" shot that is an "awww" shot...usually it's more like, there is the back of someone, why would you photograph that?  One of my friends has these awesome pictures of her son walking away and they look artsy and cute.  Mine hardly ever come out that way, but I like this one because Kieran is looking back over his shoulder.

Emotions

girls on helium family turning 50 trouble

These are just some shots I've taken in the last few weeks 1 2 3

Hope y'all enjoy!

A couple of pictures submitted for the challenge. The soccer pictures were taken last weekend. The first is Jeremy in which all I can descibe the emotion is Aghh!. The next of Jeremy is a look of Determination. Whether that is an emotion or not, oh well. Jeremy took his nephew Drew to play soccer is well. Drew is a very happy grandson. He makes taking pictures so easy. Here is another of  Drew. This is one of my favorites of Niki and Drew's lil sister, Isabelle.  It is a picture taken last summer of a Mother's Love.

The next couple are from a recent wedding of my brother in St. Thomas. I like this one in particular of Phil and Jane. Jane looks so at ease while I can't figure out what was on Phil's mind. A more traditional photo of the Newlyweds. The last one is from the reception. It is truly a one of a kind. It turns out Jane was actually laughing because she just realized that she had the shoe on the wrong foot. I hope you enjoy as much as I did takeing them.

Now that I've introduced myself, I should introduce you to my favorite subjects - my boys Grant, 7, and Griffin, 3.  They're a little bit goofy, a little bit crazy, a little bit silly, and a whole lot loveable.  These were taken on Easter out in my garden, which is another favorite subject of mine.

BusyB asked me in my last post where the trail thru the rock went to and I got thinking about the trail and the last time we were up it.  It was last summer, all the kids were down, and we were having a cookout with some friends.  
  One thing lead to another and I got nostalgic for the days when they were little... so before long I had the albums out looking. What you see here are some of the pages from the album.
  All these shots are about 25yrs old.  I shot mostly b/w film then. I developed and printed these in my old darkroom and just today scanned them into the computer...

Are we ready? Pocket knife...check. Whistle...check. Canteen...check. Flashlight...check. Big wad of gum...check.
The Punch Bowl is along the trail you asked about. They loved playing in water... who doesn't?
Rough terrain was just a challenge for them.
Laura Beth was always posing.
Favorite photo tree was a giant sycamore with a large bowl about 7 feet off the ground.
This photo has a lot of problems with contrast, sharpness, etc. but it was a grab shot I made because of their different looks and body language. I could never make it any better but I don't care. I like it anyway.

So, blame BusyB for my self-indulgent walk down memory lane. I'll just thank her.

   It's been a great stay at TURBO's house. He treated me well, ...coffee ,haircut, games, meeting new friends , even a playfull romp with his cat Bum. I'm sure gunna miss Bum....

   And TURBO and his family  really accepted me into their home. Matthew let me watch him as he was drawing some space guys , he's a good kid !

   Bye, TURBO. Tell Bum good bye for me again. I'm on my way to Blizzard's house now! See ya !!!

**Personal note from Bum to Hana-- I'll miss you...  

The credits for these pictures go to ma wife...
Me Niece (1)
Me Niece (2)
Me Niece (3)

~|Enjoy|~

Here there are,hope you enjoy them.
My aunt
Aunt and uncle , my dad workin the horses , aunt Imelda , My Mom's favorite church

    On a recent trip to Colorado Springs to see mey kids, we journeyed up to the snowy hills and took in the sites. My step son Rick and grand daughter Natalie were having a great time,along withCaitlyn,my daughter in law...Rick's wife. My grandson Riley made a snow man(with the help of everyone else but he started it!!!)
   I decided to get antoher shot of us just in case, so I set the timer,which was an a rock about 50 feet away and ran to get in the shot... I had a hard time getting there and slipped when I got there, just barely making it in the picture, Next to Riley!  
   Away from the snow, lower in the vallet, we came across a herd of elk. And this was the view we had.
A couple more shots... as the sun went down,the  rays were visible.

I've been taking snapshots since I was 6 or 7 - more than 30 years. In my 20's I went through a mildly-serious photographer-wanna-be phase, but life, children, the sheer hell of managing boxes of negatives and a perceived lack of talent (on my own part) meant that that time faded away.

Recently I've been trying to get back into it with a new gift - a Panasonic Lumix camera.  The camera is nice, better in most ways than my old Nikon 995, but I still feel like my pictures are... lacking. Some of it is technical

These pictures are basically my best recent attempts at using the Lumix and then cleaning up the results with PSE 2.0. Any feedback is appreciated.

Probably my best picture this year

Ridiculously cute puppy

As you might tell, I'm fond of a soft-focus approach; which PSE makes easy; duplicate the image layer, cut a hole for the face, blur the rest of the image and mix the result.

 Troll Junior, black and white Same, in color

This gentleman hates having his picture taken and is suffering the beginnings of teen skin problems. Between the acne and the way the camera seems to pick up every wanna-be whisker I'm having a terrible time getting a good picture of him. These pictures are unposed random snaps. Any ideas?

All 4 of these pictures are heavily re-touched to clear up his skin and hide some of the incipent mustache and sideburns (which, I swear, are too pale to see IRL but seem to jump into glowing detail when I take his picture). I use the black and white because I thought it helped with the over-red skin.

Troll Junior, second pose Same, but black and white

And, lastly, a tragic photo showing the human drama of our recent blizzard:

buried alive!

Monday evening my folks came over for dinner.  Afterward our oldest played Mozart duets with Grandpa.
They had a great time. Anna even got in the mix. Grandpa has been Kirstin's clarinet instructor for years.

The original of these next pictures was posted previously without any digital darkroom work.  Here are a couple versions that I worked on.  The picture was taken in western North Dakota on our way back from Glacier National Park.  There was a big storm to the east.

color sunbeams
black and white sunbeams

 Just a couple of Holiday pics to share. The first is my wife with her loving college freshman daughter.Mother Daughter
The other is two of my gfavorite nieces, full of trouble.Niece

Well christmas morning, as I was getting ready to go to my daughter's place to open gifts, I noticed that I forgot my camera. When I went to get it off the dresser, it fell. I turned it on and it worked, Great. But later on when I wanted to take pictures, the camera would not work. It would not turn on.
I have four year warranty on it but it doesn't cover for damage from dropping it etc.
I got it at Best Buy. In the past I brought a Kodak camera there for my .daughter and it broke after the warranty was over. The picture of my daughter and neice Megan was taken with the Kodak camera this Christmas. Best Buy and Kodak together gave me a brand new Kodak camera the same kind that was damaged. My camera is a Canon Powershot A95 I just brought in June 2005. Wish me luck.
For those of you following my progess on the house renovations, I posted some pics of the master bedroom, but it didn't last long on the front page, because of all the postings, please check them out.

I'm a Freeman and my son is a Young,thus the title. We always open presents on Christmas Eve. My Mother started the tradition since we always went to my grandfather's on Christmas Day. These are all from today. The kids had to go home to Mom by 3:00 pm. The sadness of divorce. Anyway here are a few pics from Nana's. These are also my theme entry. A child's excitement. Haley gets a surprise . Stephen (aka) doodle bug seems to struggle with his gift . Although this was intended for Haley, we big kids have to teach it to speak english instead of Furbish . I'm havin fun now ;) I'll try not to teach it bad language. My doodle bug wanted a hoodie and Nana delivered.Elgin is so wonderful with the kids, they love him very much.  Daddy also helps with the screws and wires. What's up with all that? I never had any trouble tearing into mine. Now, it takes "tools" to get into em. It seems Haley is contemplatingwhat to do with this. I think Elgin likes the Furby too. He called it a butthead and its ears dropped in a very sad expression. My little dogs were not forgotten, they got squeaky toys. Merry Christmas to everyone. Behave yourselves on New Year's or at least have a designated driver.

Santa came by my house early this year! He dropped off a Canon "CanoScan 8400F"!!! Here are some samples...

Gotta love the 1957 style bathing suits, My grandma and father.

My grandma father and uncle in Seratoga also in 1957.

My parents wedding, the main wedding pictures came back green, so they are far and few between.

They need some PSing but its almost 3am.

Enjoy!

We had the g-kids for a little while yesterday afternoon
Mckenna trying to figure out what to do with This
And then McKenna was supervising over brother  Wallace
  Tried to think of who Wallace might be talking to Santa maybe?
 Oh, and this little helper tried to make room for Something