Friday was Graduation Day at Newbury Park High School class of 2009. Since the class included my youngest child Nick, I was there with a couple cameras. Congrats to all the grads. Quoting Spock: "Live Long and Prosper!"

For interested friends, I posted this dotphoto album. The sad part of this graduation is saying gooby to a group of soccer players I have been following with my cameras for the last decade.




dotphoto album.

My father Harold was one of six siblings. I ended up with over 20 cousins on the Harrison side of the family. For several months I have wanted to revise an old chain letter the cousins onced produced. One cousin, Julie Harrison, suggested using myfamily.com. So last week I set up a web site on myfamily called The Cousins Chainletter.

MyFamily.com sites are free, with ads. The site was easy to setup and includes videos, photos, discussions, event calendar. Looks like a good deal. The only complaint so far is when I upload a photo album of say 40 images, the home page makes each photo a separate "new" item. This creates a long list of items to go through before getting to other family member uploads. In the photo album preferences there is a way to remove from home page, but the photos still appear on the home page as separate items.

There is a pro versions for a fee that gives additional options and upload space. Web sites created at MyFamily.com are invitation only, not open to the general public.


Photo from about 1900 of Bob Harrison, my great grandfather.

I uploaded about 40 historical family images to The Cousins Chainletter. Most of the images are simple group shots, but a few are special. I was especially attracted to this face-less image of my great grandfather. The original was a small wallet size print that was cropped this was on the bottom. If interested in visiting this site, email me and I will send you an e-mail invitation.

My daughter Christine graduated Saturday from the Thurgood Marshall College at University of California San Diego. About 900 graduates and their guests were caught by major heat wave that pushed the temperatures over 90 at the coastline campus. Just a few miles inland it was over 100. Well we stuck it out to the end.

There were nine graduation ceremonies over the weekend at UCSD. The grads had to wait an additional week because the US Open and Tiger Woods came to La Jolla the weekend before. Many grads had their last final two weeks earlier. So Tiger had the good weather, I got the heat. One more reason I dislike golf.



Parents were allowed to accompany their graduate through the diploma line. This mom came equipt with her own photo.



This grad got my award for best custom cap!



Stephen Gilmore, of Newbury Park, California, waits for his name to be announced and presentation of his diploma.



Christine Harrison joins other grads in moving the tassel at the end of her graduation.

I put up a dotphoto album for Christine and all her friends: UCSD Graduation

My son Jonathan went and got his own dog this week - a golden retriever puppy. Years ago we had a golden named Woody. Of course he named the new golden Woody. I call him Woody Too as in "You also named him Woody too?"

The new Lightroom Beta came in handy, as my first good photo of Woody Too was strongly backlit. I was able to do all the correction in Lightroom Beta and not go into Photoshop and use shadow/highlight.

Say hello to Woody Too.

Many photographers end up being keepers of their extended family images. I have that same never-ending project. Several years ago my mother sent me several roles of black and white negs to see what was on them. Sure enough I found this image of my father and I.



Harold Harrison and Son, 1951.

Photoshop is still the main tool for working on family images, but I am turning more and more to working in Photoshop Lightroom (LR). I have been slowly moving my photo files onto one hard drive and using LR to build several libraries - including a family library. Each image is kept intact as changes are only applied when an image is exported. I am a big believer in this non-destructive workflow. I don't have to jump from app to app to do editing, color correction, printing, web galleries and slideshows.

Jonathan was one of 425 graduates Friday at Newbury Park High School. YEA!