When Melanie and I first started dating, we went to the Orange County Fair to waste our money on un-winnable games, scary rides that can be packed up and hauled off to the next county fairground location, and all of that indulgent and deep-fried food. The deep fried avocado and the Aussie battered potatoes are  favorites of ours!

In 2000, we did the photo booth thing with just the two of us. The following year, we started bringing Lauren to the fair with us… and began this tradition of annual family photos in the booth. After about 4 years, I started putting the strips together on the front of our refrigerator in chronological order. Soon after, I began scanning them in and combining them into one picture.

You should click on the thumbnail above to view the photo on flickr.com, where you can see it larger. I believe it’s my most viewed photo on flickr… I think it’s been blogged a few times, which gets it some traffic for sure.

Here is the single strip from our 2010 trip to the fair… Now, I need to update the header image on our family website to include the latest shot.

In 1971, my mother decided it would be fun to pick up and move the whole family to Australia. In March of that year she had heard some friends talking about the Australian consulate and some sort of program to bring workers to that country. By June, we were packed and heading to the airport. I was just barely 11 months old, so I do not recall any of this.

In 1973, we befriended some neighbors of ours, the Graveson family. Parents David and Anne had 3 kids…Two girls, Anita and Karin, who were close in age to my sister Stephanie, and brother Derek; and one boy, Erik, who was very close to my age. We spent lots of time hanging out together at the beach and having lots of fun. Both dads were very fun, and made sure that all of us kids were always entertained.

In 1977, my mom woke up one day and decided that she had enough of Aussie land, and said it was time to go back to New York. We made our way back, staying with other friends in the city until we settled in Port Jefferson, on Long Island. The parents kept in touch, and in 1979, when the Gravesons were relocating to another continent, they arranged to visit us when passing through New York.

The families made sure to get some beach time together and went out to Jones Beach on Long Island. Fun times on the beach included building huge pyramid sand castles, making hats out of beach towels, and singing/dancing to a song that David made up for us; we recall it being the “umkwa ka zinga” song.

The Graveson family have always been a huge part of our childhood memories of fun and happiness. And, after their visit to Long Island, our parents kept in touch ever since then via holiday cards and occasional phone calls. Us Bernhart kids would get updates from our parents at Christmas time on what their family was up to and where they were.

This past Christmas (2009), we learned that their father, David, had passed away earlier that year, after a long battle with cancer. Obviously, this really saddened us as we recalled once again, all of the great times we had with him and our families together. A few weeks after our own father passed away from a much shorter fight with cancer this May, my mother called their mother, Anne, to give her the news… and to talk about everything. My mom told me that she had a nice long call with Anne and they talked about all of the kids and grandkids. A few days after that call, I got a friend request on Facebook from Karin. Then a day later, another request from Anita. I then found Erik through their profile pages and sent him a friend request. And lastly, I found Anne there as well. My sister also hooked up with all of them. My brother, Derek, tried but didn’t like Facebook and removed his account. Oh well, his loss… we’ll have to keep him updated separately. Perhaps I can talk him into re-joining, and get my mom on there as well (good luck to me).

How great is the internet in this day and age? We can all share photos and messages with each other, and keep in touch much easier than if there were no such thing as the ‘net. Erik and I have sent some messages back and forth, catching up on what our own families have been up to. We’ve discovered that we both have some very similar interests and background. It’s been so great to see that they are all doing so well. It’s also been good for some self-healing in dealing with my father’s passing… to be reminded of how much fun it was having him as our father. I look forward to keeping in touch with them.

By the way… I sing the “umkwa ka zinga” song to Brody a lot. It gets his attention and he laughs and tries to sing along. Great for when he is fighting a diaper change!

“It works like this: if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog.”

This is a shot of Melanie taken back in October at some pre-halloween thing we went to at Lauren’s church. At that moment, I remember deciding that I should be getting more shots of Melanie. She didn’t think that it was that good of an idea… as you can tell by her expression. Oh well, I like the photo.

Click for a larger view.

Brody was born in early June of this year, 6/7/08 actually. Since then my flickr stream has been chock full of photos of Brody. He is the cutest little baby you’ve seen, so it’s tough not to keep snapping pics of him. This also keeps family and friends satisfied with new photos of him; they are all very aware of his page on our site, and are instructed regularly to go there if they want to see new photos of him. This is especially nice as we (and that really means “I”) don’t have to fiddle around every week or so with sending an email out to everyone with images attached. 

Today I quickly skimmed through my photostream and estimated that since June 10th, the day that the first photos of Brody were uploaded, he is in roughly 85% of the photos I post to flickr. Another thing I’ve noticed is that my photostream gets less views now. I suppose that this means most people see thumbnails of cute babies on flickr and don’t want to look at them. Case in point: the photo in this article I took as I was carpooling to work last week. In the 10-ish hours that it has been on flickr, it has gotten just about the same number of views as each of the last 4 photos posted before it… and those have been up for 3-4 days now.

Memories. And that’s just fine with me, the main purpose of me posting his photos is noted in the opening of this very article. Even more important, is the purpose of me taking them in the first place. I take them for me and Melanie… for Lauren, for our parents, our brothers, my sister… countless friends. But, mostly for Brody. For him to have photos to look at when he’s my age. I love to look at photos of when I was a kid. To hear my parents talk about what I (and my siblings) were like when we were Brodys age.

Priorities. Being creative has taken a back seat to what is currently more important: helping as much as I can at home with a 5-month-old, and spending time with him, with Melanie, and making sure Brody gets to spend time with the extended family. So, I have lapsed in my creativeness lately, but not totally. I still get to take lots of photos, but Brody is the center of the attention of it. One thing is for sure, we will have tons of great photos of him!

Creativity. Part of me still wants to draw those flickr viewers in to see my creative photos. The ones that don’t care to look at babys, but would rather look at a blurred car speeding along. It may sound vain, but I think it’s in the blood of any photographer to want people to “want” to view their photographs. At least for me, it’s a big part of why I photograph in the first place. I like to know that people enjoy looking at something I’ve created.

It’s been gnawing at me recently: gotta get out there an take some new photos! I pass things and can’t help but think to myself: I would shoot that, and this is how I would process it. Photography, for me, is part creativity, part meditation. It gets my brain to think differently, to break away from what could be clogging it up. It helps releive stress; a head-check if you will. I’m promising myself to slowly get some creative work done and post more of it. They will just have to be well blended among the shots of Brody and other family.

We parked across the street, and walked over to the field. Out of acres and acres of wheat, I would estimate that there was less than 5% of the crop left. And it had been left there as if it were waiting for me to get the shoot I was thinking of. We walking along the waist high wheat, using the part of the cut-down wheat where the tractors drove. Once we got far enough into the field, I smashed down some of the wheat to make a small area for them to stand in while I shot.

The photos came out very nice. And I’m definitely glad I got the chance to get out there before it was all chopped down. Check out the choice ones from the shoot.

Along with the Portugal photos, there are two other galleries for you to enjoy. If you’re really loving a specific photo (or photos!) and feel the need to decorate your space with it… there are links below each gallery that send you to ImageKind.com for you to purchase a print of your very own. And you can even get them matted and framed.

Please pass this on to anyone else that you think would enjoy them.

On the ship, the previous owner, Holland America Line, had already planned on upgrading the systems. So, I got to assist in racking all of the new equipment (new servers and a SAN) to prep it for the new software being installed soon. Each of the three Windstar vessels as well as 6 of our other (Majestic America Line) vessels are getting the software.

With the work done, and no flights home until my scheduled flight on Monday, I spent the day photographing the sights. When I say I spent the day, I really mean the whole day. At 8AM I was in downtown Setubal shooting, and then went into Lisbon and spend 4 hours there, then back down to the docks of Setubal. I got back to my hotel at 8PM, so that’s a solid 12 hours of photography… oh yeah, and lots and lots of walking. I’m guessing I clocked in a good 12-14 miles of walking today. My legs can testify to that, they’re aching. And I’m guessing that excluding work-related photos of the systems on board the ship, I have about 350-375 photos to sift through when I return home.

So, I fly back tomorrow morning… and I can’t wait. I really miss Melanie, especially when I was walking through Lisbon constantly amazed at how beautiful everything is. Whenever I saw something spectacular, I thought to myself … “I wish Melanie was here with me to see this.”

And, Lauren’s soccer team “Black Magic” had their 3rd win of the season. I missed the game since I’m traveling, but Melanie and her mom went to the game to support the team.

Stay tuned for links to the photos that I deem fit for keeping. Just give me a few days or so to process them… I can’t just take photos and upload them, I have some special processing I do to them to make them super special.

If you have time and are in the neighborhood, head on down to Joe’s Diner. They display local artists’ work and change it up each month.

Here are the details:

Joe’s Diner
2917 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Check out the photos that are being displayed…

From Thomas:

At present I’ve had my Flickrstream viewed more than 400,000 times. While I’d like to think that it has something to do with my stellar photography there are certainly tips that anyone can use to increase their visibility. Welcome to the Flickr popularity contest.

Read more over at ThomasHawk.com

Took this after my session… Getting better with the new camera. This is from the north side of the pier, looking through to the south side.

I surfed northside, which was nice and clean, glassy surface. No crowd until about 6:45, and then it still wasn’t that bad. Sweet barrelling lefts spread across 3 peaks. I stuck around in front of the condos, but got a couple of fast lefts closer to the pier towards the end of my session.

I did get caught inside during a set that seemed to last forever. I actually took a rest and sat way inside to wait for a lull… when I headed back out, another set came in. I think it took me a good 8-10 minutes to get back outside.

Anyways… fun session.