Announcing a Graduation or Two

When Jacob graduated from high school, a friend blessed us with a graduation gift of graduation announcements complete with photos - beautiful, creative, edited photos. (If you read this, dear friend - Thanks again!)

Jacob is getting his AA ummmmm - next week! Three cheers!!
But we are not sending out announcements. Probably the next important card-like snail mail you'll get pertaining to him will be a wedding invitation. But NOT next week.

Andrew is graduating from high school in a few weeks. I'm so impressed that he will finish H. S. with 45 college credits. Three cheers for dual enrollment!!

I decided I'd do Andrew's announcements myself & have been gathering ideas & materials (clearance cards from Michael's, glue dots) plus did several "photo shoots" when we were in TX - remember I promised you more pictures?

It's been fun & I've learned a lot. Like, you must wait a LONG TIME after printing on the shiny side of a card before printing on the other side or the shiny side will smear on each & every one of the cards and the ink will show up on the newly printed side & ruin every one. I also learned that even though I worked at Kinko's & know the proper way to load most copy machines (upside down & backwards) does not guarantee that I will not get in a hurry & load upside down the cards that I had waited for six hours for the shiny side to dry and ruin that run.
I'm so glad they were clearance priced!

Now onto my photography experience:
Most of these pictures were made in the Japanese Tea Gardens.
I liked Andrew's tree hugger shot - no leg popping though so I cropped to this. Plus I cut off his feet in the large shot. It was hard to keep appendages in the frame. Maybe because he's so tall?


Andrew didn't like any of this set leaning against this side of this tree. Something about posture. Notice my son likes keeping his hands in his pockets.



This was my favorite. Was being the operative word. However, if you enlarge it you will see Andrew's silly sister wanting in on the photo action. Ah, yes, background issues... I'm confident my fabulous friend could have fixed it but alas, I have not her talent.
I cropped this some since I cut his feet off...


"Pucker up!"
Note the hands.
I used one he liked of him leaning on this side of the tree as his grad photo. In black & white.



Floating in the air, his hands are not touching the bridge.
This one cracked me up.

Andrew didn't like any of the leaning-back-on-the- tree-on-his-arms poses. Upon closer inspection I found carving on the tree by his head. And you can see that his toes didn't make it into the pic. Love that pointe. He was in gymnastics years ago, you know. LOL!

Not a great photo but I snickered at how the background leaves gave him a small beard. Ha!

I like this one. Andrew, not so much.

Andrew got tired of posing pretty quickly. Obviously a boy child.

The rest of the photos were taken on the Alamo grounds. Andrew purchased one of the coolest UT Ts I've ever seen but upon reflection, since he will not be attending UT, we decided the shirt on grad announcements would raise too many questions. Bummer.

Andrew didn't like any of his squatting poses - not that it mattered in that T.
Serious face, smiling face.

He got pretty good at posing but said he hated it so don't expect to see him on any magazine covers.

Any time soon.

I determined that black & white color editing & white T shirts on tanned Andrew do not mix.
Whadda you think?

Don't you just love all these great cactus shots?

Appendages!





It's been a fun learning experience plus I got to spend all that time with Andrew.

And did I mention that I got to play with glue dots? Try it, you'll like it. :-)